Daniel Santbech (fl.
1561) was a
Dutch mathematician and
astronomer. He adopted the
Latinized name of
Noviomagus, possibly suggesting that he came from the town of
Nijmegen, called
Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum by the
Romans.
In
1561, Santbech compiled a collected edition of the works of
Regiomontanus (1436–1476),
De triangulis planis et sphaericis libri quinque (first published in
1533) and
Compositio tabularum sinum recto, as well as Santbech's own
Problematum astronomicorum et geometricorum sectiones septem. It was published in
Basel by
Henrich Petri and
Petrus Perna.
Santbech's work consisted of studies on
astronomy,
sundials,
surveying, and
levelling for water courses. It also includes descriptions of astronomical instruments, information for
navigators and
geographers, and general information about astronomy in the first years after
Nicolaus Copernicus.
Santbech also studied the subject of
gunnery and
ballistics as a theoretic discourse as well as for the practical application of war, and utilized the foundations of geometry, with ample references to
Euclid and
Ptolemy, in order to do so. Santbech seem not to have been aware of similar studies by
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia.
Santbech's text included theoretical illustrations of
trajectories. These were depicted with abruptly
acute angles and straight lines, allowing him to create a right-angled triangle from which
ranges were computed with the help of a table of
sines. Santbech was of course fully aware that a
cannonball's...
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