Benjamin Bramer (15 February 1588 – 17 March 1652) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, inventor, and

adviser An adviser or advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area and usually also includes persons with cross-functional and multidisciplinary expertise. An adviser's role is that of a mentor or guide and differs categor ...

Early life

Bramer was born on 15 February 1588 in

Felsberg, Germany Felsberg is a town in the Schwalm-Eder district about south of Kassel. Geography The landscape around Felsberg is marked by hills and small lakes, as well as the remains of gravel quarrying. As part of the West Hesse Depression, it lies in a su ...

to a Protestant minister father. The minister later died when Bramer was three years old. This led him to be adopted by his brother-in-law,

Jost Bürgi Jost Bürgi (also ''Joost, Jobst''; Latinized surname ''Burgius'' or ''Byrgius''; 28 February 1552 – 31 January 1632), active primarily at the courts in Kassel and Prague, was a Swiss clockmaker, a maker of astronomical instruments and a ma ...

, who was a prominent mathematician at the time. He moved to Bürgi's home in Kassel after being adopted. Bürgi educated Bramer from a young age, particularly in the fields of mathematics and architecture. When Bramer was 16 he stayed in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

with his foster father after Bürgi was appointed to the imperial court. Bramer would stay there for five years before returning to Kassel to begin his career.

Career

Title page of Bramer's book Problema, Marburg, 1614

One of his first jobs was as an architectural adviser to Count Christian von Waldeck. He advised him to construct a new church in the town of Widungen, but the out break of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle ...

caused him to begin focusing on the design of military fortifications. One such fortification was the

Rheinfels Castle Rheinfels Castle (german: Burg Rheinfels) is a castle ruin located above the left (west) bank of the Rhine in Sankt Goar, Germany. It was started in 1245 by Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen. After expansions, it was the largest fortress in the M ...

which he improved for the Count of Solms. In 1635 he became the master builder of Ziegenhain Fortress. Bramer's first scientific publication was in 1614. Titled ''Problema wie aus bekannt gegebenem sinu eines Grades, Minuten oder Sekunden alle folgenden sinus aufs leichtests zu finden und der canon sinuum zu absolvieren sei '' he described various measures to calculate sines. He also published a work on vacuums titled ''Kurze Meldung vom Vacuo oder leerem Orte, neben anderen wunderbaren und subtilen Quaestionen, desgleichen Nic Cusani Dialogus von Waag und Gewicht''. In 1630, he constructed an early

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

enabling him to draw accurate geometric perspective which he described in an earlier 1617 publication titled ''Trigonometrica planorum mechanica oder Unterricht und Beschreibung eines neuen und sehr bequemen geometrischen Instrumentes zu allerhand Abmessung''. Although he is typically not credited with the invention of the pantograph, his early design is superior to the pantograph invented by

Christoph Scheiner Christoph Scheiner SJ (25 July 1573 (or 1575) – 18 June 1650) was a Jesuit priest, physicist and astronomer in Ingolstadt. Biography Augsburg/Dillingen: 1591–1605 Scheiner was born in Markt Wald near Mindelheim in Swabia, earlier markgrav ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bramer, Benjamin 1588 births 1652 deaths 17th-century German mathematicians 17th-century German architects 17th-century German inventors