Diagrams and Other Visual Aids in the Early Modern University Classroom

Research Seminar

  • Online event via Zoom
  • Date: Nov 11, 2021
  • Time: 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Mordechai Feingold
  • Contact: boehm@biblhertz.it
Diagrams and Other Visual Aids in the Early Modern University Classroom
Frontispiece of Euclid, Works, ed. David Gregory (Oxford, 1703)
On 19 July 1595, while lecturing on astronomy in the Protestant seminary school at Graz, Johannes Kepler had an epiphany. As he recalled in the Mysterium cosmographicum, 'when I was going to show my audience the leaps of the great conjunctions … I inscribed many triangles, or quasi-triangles, in the same circle, so that the end of one was the beginning of another.'

The emerging pattern led Kepler to the idea of nested polyhedra. Kepler failed to inform his readers on what he drew his triangles and, consequently, few scholars thought it necessary to speculate on the nature of such a surface. Seeking to redress such neglect, the talk seeks to underscore the importance of classroom 'furniture' for better appreciation of the contribution of early modern institutions of higher learning to the dissemination and advancement of scientific knowledge.

Mordechai Feingold is the Van Nuys Professor of the History of Science and the Humanities at Caltech.

This event will take place on Zoom Webinar. The link to join the event will be sent to you in a confirmation email. Please register through THIS LINK.


Scientific Organization: Sietske Fransen and Christoph Sander


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