We are very happy to report that our blogger Chris Graney just got the finalized contract on a new book: The Mathematical Disquisitions of Locher and Scheiner: the ‘Booklet of Theses’ immortalized by Galileo (by C M Graney) is going to be published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
from Locher’s bookAll the writing and peer review is finished; it is currently in production and the Press is aiming to have it in print this fall.
Christina and Chris Graney, by the banks of the Ohio. I liked it where we walked…The book is his translation from Latin of Johann Georg Locher’s 1614 Disquisitiones Mathematicae. Galileo devoted a fair bit of space in his 1632 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems to picking on this book of Locher’s.
The original (Latin) version of Locher’s book is available on-line, with a thumbnails view also available. Note – lots and lots of pictures! (That’s one reason to translate it. Another is that is short. And another is that Galileo talks about it a lot.)
Chris tells me that he translated Locher with an eye for classroom use as well as scholarly use – lots of students, at lots of different levels (even advanced high school) are assigned readings from Galileo’s Dialogue in classes ranging from history, to history and philosophy of science, to introductory astronomy; now they can read the words of one of the people Galileo was attacking, too.
Chris comments: “What is surprising (after reading Galileo) is that Locher seems like a pretty sharp guy. Maybe I am exceedingly optimistic, but I think this book is going to be cool, it is going to revise a lot of teaching, and teachers and scholars both are going to like it and find it useful.”
