Valentinus Otho (also Valentin Otto; born around 1545–46 possibly in
Magdeburg – 8 April 1603 in
Heidelberg) was a German
mathematician and
astronomer.
Life
In 1573 he came to
Wittenberg, proposing to
Johannes Praetorius
Johannes Praetorius or Johann Richter (1537 – 27 October 1616) was a Bohemian German mathematician and astronomer.
Life
Praetorius was born in Jáchymov, Bohemia. From 1557 he studied at the University of Wittenberg, and from 1562 to 156 ...
an approximation of
pi as
(now known as ''
milü
Milü (; "close ratio"), also known as Zulü ( Zu's ratio), is the name given to an approximation to (pi) found by Chinese mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi in the 5th century. Using Liu Hui's algorithm (which is based on the areas of r ...
'', as named by its first discover, the Chinese mathematician
Zu Chongzhi).
In 1575 he supported
Georg Joachim Rheticus in his
trigonometric tables. The next year they went to
Kaschau in
Hungary where Rheticus died. Thus, Otho inherited the
De revolutionibus manuscript of
Nicolaus Copernicus that Rheticus had published in 1543 in
Nuremberg.
Otho became Professor for mathematics in Wittenberg, but when the rulers of Saxony did not support the tables, he moved to
Heidelberg where Elector
Friedrich IV sponsored the '’Opus Palatinum de Triangulis’’ in 1596.
Work
* ''Opus Palatinum de Triangulis'', 1596 (original manuscript availabl
online
* ''De triangulis globi sine angulo recto libri quinque''
External links
* Cantor, Moritz
* .
1603 deaths
16th-century German mathematicians
16th-century German astronomers
Year of birth uncertain
Thomaskantors
16th-century German writers
16th-century German male writers
{{Germany-astronomer-stub