Erasmus Reinhold belongs to the record of astronomy as one of those whose work outlasted the questions that prompted it.
Erasmus Reinhold was born at Saalfeld in 1511. He was educated at University of Wittenberg.
This was the period in which observation began to outrank inherited authority, and in which printing let a result reach readers who would never meet its author.
The institutions that housed his research were University of Wittenberg, where the work centred on astronomy.
His principal work is Prutenic Tables. Every advance in astronomy has been an advance in seeing - better optics, better records, better ways of trusting faint light.
The measure that matters is durability. Results that survive re-examination become the floor of a discipline, and it is on that floor that everything afterwards is built.
Death came in 1553, at 42. By then the contribution had passed into the settled body of astronomy, where it is used without being credited - the surest sign that it was right.
Achievements
- Notable work: Prutenic Tables
- Held posts at University of Wittenberg
- Educated at University of Wittenberg
- Fields of research: astronomy
