Jost Bürgi Quotes (1552-1632)

“I do not have to explain to which level of comprehensibility this extremely deep and nebulous theory has been corrected and improved by the tireless study of my dear teacher, Justus Bürgi... by assiduous considerations and daily thought. ...Therefore neither I nor my dear teacher, the inventor and innovator of this hidden science, will ever regret the trouble and the labor which we have spent.”

“It is surprising that Kepler did not consider Jost Bürgi, who from around 1580 to 1592 already constructed planetary globes that were considered awesome works of art. ...In the letter 42 dated May 28th 1598, to the Duke Friederich I von Württemberg (1557–1608), Kepler writes that he will construct a globus with a planetarium. It is possible and likely that the Duke had in mind a sky globus similar to those already constructed by Eberhard Baldewein (1525-1593), Gerhard Emmoser (1556-1584) or Jost Bürgi (1552-1631), but none of these authors were cited in Kepler’s overview. These machines were designed and constructed to show the overall motion of the sky, to identify the position of the stars, to show the motion either of the Sun, the Moon or both.”

“If a hint could have urged any human mind thus rapidly upon the theory of the Logarithms, there was a hint which arose in the school of Alexandria, which was submerged in the middle ages, and rose again with the letters of Greece; which Tycho had — which Stifellius, Byrgius [Bürgi], Longomontanus, and above all which Kepler had—and all made no more of it than Archimedes had done.”

“Had it appeared a century before Napier, would not physical astronomy have been as far advanced in his time as it was a century after, and would not NAPIER have been NEWTON? But there were many persons having thoughts of such a table of numbers besides the few who are said to have attempted it! Dr Hutton, in support of this assertion... clings to Byrgius;"Kepler also says, that one Juste Byrge, assistant astronomer to the Landgrave of Hesse, invented or projected Logarithms long before Neper did, but that they had never come abroad on account of the great reservedness of their author with regard to his own compositions."But Hutton, though he suppresses what... qualifies the words of Kepler, and ventures not into the slightest examination of the pretension for Byrgius (who never made it for himself) is fond of the story, and does what he can to fix it upon the legislator of the stars as an unqualified assertion of his; for, speaking of the Rudolphine Tables, our author takes occasion to repeat,"and here it is that he (Kepler) mentions Justus Byrgius as having had Logarithms before Napier published them."”