Gemma Frisius, seventeenth-century woodcut by E. de Boulonois

Gemma Frisius's 1533 diagram introducing the idea of triangulation into the science of surveying. Having established a baseline, eg the cities of Brussels and Antwerp, the location of other cities, eg Middelburg, Ghent etc, can be found by taking a compass direction from each end of the baseline, and plotting where the two directions cross. Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is ||-||-||-||} Antwerp ( Dutch:, French: Anvers) is a City and Municipality in Belgium and the capital of the This is about the city in the Netherlands For other uses see Middelburg (disambiguation. Ghent (ˈɡɛnt Gent ʝɛnt in Dutch, Gand in French, and formerly Gaunt in English) is a City and a Note that this was only a theoretical presentation of the concept -- because of hills etc, it is in fact actually impossible to see Middelburg from either Brussels or Antwerp! Nevertheless, the figure soon became well known all across Europe.

For the crater, see Gemma Frisius (crater)

Gemma Frisius (or Reiner Gemma, December 9, 1508-May 25, 1555) was a mathematician, cartographer and instrument maker. Gemma Frisius is a lunar crater that is located in the rugged southern highlands of the Moon. Events 536 - Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city Events 1085 - Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo Spain back from the Moors. Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and He created important globes, improved the mathematical instruments of his day and applied mathematics in new ways to surveying and navigation. A globe is a three- Dimensional scale model of Earth ( terrestrial globe) or other spheroid celestial body such as a planet star or moon

He was born in Dokkum, Friesland (present-day Netherlands) of poor parents, who died when he was young. Dokkum is a Dutch Fortified town in the municipality of Dongeradeel in the province of Friesland. Friesland ( West Frisian: Fryslân, Dutch Friesland) is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the bigger region known The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Though a poor orphan, he studied at Leuven beginning in 1525. The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (in short KU Leuven) is the Flemish offshoot of the oldest university in the Low Countries which was originally founded He received the degree of MD in 1536 and remained on the faculty of medicine at Leuven for the rest of his life.

While still a student, Frisius set up a workshop to produce globes and mathematical instruments. He became noted for the quality and accuracy of his instruments, which were praised by Tycho Brahe, among others. Tycho Brahe, born Tyge Ottesen Brahe ( December 14 1546 &ndash October 24 1601) was a Danish nobleman In 1533, he described for the first time the method of triangulation still used today in surveying. In Trigonometry and Geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either Twenty years later, he was the first to describe how an accurate clock could be used to determine longitude. Longitude (ˈlɒndʒɪˌtjuːd or ˈlɒŋgɪˌtjuːd symbolized by the Greek character Lambda (λ is the east-west Geographic coordinate measurement Jean-Baptiste Morin (1583-1656) did not believe that Frisius' method for calculating out longitude would work, remarking, "I do not know if the Devil will succeed in making a longitude timekeeper but it is folly for man to try. Jean-Baptiste Morin ( February 23, 1583 — November 6, 1656) also known by his Latin Pseudonym as Morinus was a French "^[1]

Frisius created or improved many instruments, including the cross-staff, the astrolabe and the astronomical rings. For the plant known as the ocotillo sometimes called the Jacob's staff see Ocotillo. The astrolabe is a historical Astronomical instrument used by classical astronomers, Navigators His students included Gerardus Mercator (who became his collaborator), Johannes Stadius, and John Dee. A separate article is about the mathematician Nicholas Mercator. Johannes Stadius or Estadius ( Dutch, Jan Van Ostaeyen; French, Jean Stade) (ca John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609 was a noted English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, occultist

References

External links

• O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F. , “Regnier Gemma Frisius”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive