西门·马里乌斯Simon Marius

西门·马里乌斯也被称为马里乌斯或Mayer，但在本传记中我们将始终使用马里乌斯这一版本。他的父亲Reichart 马里乌斯于1576年担任Gunzenhausen市长，这可能表明这个家庭相当富裕。然而，马里乌斯于1586年被送到Heilsbronn的Margrave学院，这是一所为来自贫困家庭但表现出显著学术潜力的男孩开设的学校。该校的目的是为路德宗牧师培养男孩。在这所学校期间，他对天文学产生了兴趣，并于1594年开始进行天文和气象观测。1596年出现了一颗彗星，马里乌斯进行了观测并将其纳入一份出版物中。1599年，他出版了他的天文表。

他在边疆伯爵的学院学习到1601年，但此时他的出版物已为他赢得了数学家和天文学家的良好声誉。那一年，他被任命为安斯巴赫边疆伯爵的数学家。他带着一封日期为1601年5月22日的推荐信被派往布拉格，师从第谷·布拉赫。他在那里待了四个月，学习使用第谷·布拉赫的仪器。第谷·布拉赫于那年十月去世，但马里乌斯已经离开，因为我们知道他于9月25日途经摩拉维亚前往维也纳，然后继续南下。随后他前往帕多瓦学习医学。马里乌斯于1601年12月18日被帕多瓦大学德国文科学生协会接纳，向该协会捐赠了6威尼斯里拉（在接下来的四年中他每年捐赠10里拉）。他于1604年3月5日成为该协会的学监，随后于1604年7月27日被选为图书管理员，任职至1605年4月14日。他在此职位上的行为导致他声名不佳，因为他在1605年7月1日离开帕多瓦之后[1]：-

该协会7月24日的正式会议记录记载，他曾就该协会对即将进行的选举中德国法律系学生的态度向协会提供了错误信息。

马里乌斯似乎是一位好战的路德教徒，这可能促成了他在协会中担任权威职位时的行为。另一件导致他声名不佳的事件涉及一名学生Baldessar Capra，他于1602年开始辅导该学生。马里乌斯和Capra观测了1604年可见的一颗新星，马里乌斯帮助Capra以Capra的名义写了一本关于这颗新星的书。这本身并无不妥，但1607年，Capra出版了一本手册，声称是他所写，而实际上是由伽利略所写。为此，Capra被大学开除，但马里乌斯——此时已离开意大利——被认为与此欺诈行为有牵连。伽利略肯定这样认为，但他选择不明言马里乌斯，而是将其描述为他的“老对手”，更糟糕的是“毒蛇”和“全人类的敌人”。

他于1605年回到德国，在Ansbach市担任Margraves——Christian和Joachin Ernst——的数学家和医生。1606年，他与出版商女儿Felicitas Lauer结婚。他于1609年出版了欧几里得的Elements第一卷至第六卷的第一部德语译本。事实上，1609年对马里乌斯来说是关键的一年，并导致他与伽利略发生严重争执，这一次他点名并写下了对他的强烈谴责，我们引用如下。

听说1608年法兰克福博览会上有人在出售望远镜后，马里乌斯自己制造了一台。他花了大约一年时间才拥有一台质量足以进行天文观测的望远镜，并声称在1609年12月观测到了木星的卫星。如果属实，他的观测比伽利略早一个月。他的这一主张发表在他1614年题为Mundus Iovialis anno M.DC.IX Detectus Ope Perspicilli Belgici Ⓣ（《木星世界，1609年借助荷兰望远镜发现》）的书中，他在书中陈述他于1609年11月下旬开始观测，并记录了他从12月29日开始的观测。然而，伽利略在Assayer （1623年）[4]中激烈质疑马里乌斯的主张（另见[5]）：-

这样的僭越者我可以举出不止一个，但现在我将默而不提，因为初犯通常比再犯受到较轻的惩罚。但对于第二个冒犯者，我不能再保持沉默，他过于大胆地试图对我做同样的事情，就像许多年前他通过窃取我的几何罗盘发明所做的那样，尽管我多年前已在许多绅士面前展示并讨论过它，并最终将其付印公开。如果我违背自己的天性、习惯和目前的意图——对一件我多年来一直隐忍的事情表示不满并大声疾呼，也许过于尖刻，请原谅我。我说的是贡岑豪森的马里乌斯；正是他在帕多瓦，当时我居住在那里，用拉丁文阐述了上述我的罗盘的用法，并将其据为己有，让他的一个学生以他的名义印刷。随即，也许是为了逃避惩罚，他立即动身返回故乡，正如俗话所说，让他的学生陷入困境；在马里乌斯缺席的情况下，我不得不对后者采取我在当时撰写并出版的《辩护》中所述的方式。在我的《星际信使》出版四年后，这同一个人，像往常一样渴望用他人的劳动来装饰自己，竟不知羞耻地把我在这部作品中发现并印刷的东西说成是自己的。他以《木星世界》为标题出版，胆敢声称他比我先观察到这些围绕木星旋转的美第奇行星。但由于真理很少被虚假所压制，你可以看到他自己如何由于粗心和无知，在那部作品中给了我无可辩驳的证据来定罪他，并明确揭示他的错误，不仅表明他没有在我之前观察到这些星星，甚至表明他直到两年后才确定看到它们；而且我还要说，可以很有把握地断言他从未观察到它们。
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接下来，请注意他试图显示自己先于我的手法。我在《星际信使》中写道，我的第一次观察是在1610年1月7日，然后在随后的夜晚继续观察。马里乌斯来了，他窃取了我的观察，在他的书的标题页和作品的开头部分印出他已经在1609年进行了观察，试图让人们认为他是第一个。他提出的最早观察是我做的第二次观察；然而他宣称它是在1609年做的。他忽略向读者提及的是，由于他不在我们的教会中，没有接受格里高利历，对我们天主教徒来说，1610年1月7日，对那些异教徒来说就是1609年12月28日。关于他所谓的观察的优先权就说到这里。

虽然无法证明他的说法是真是假，但科学史家的普遍观点是，马里乌斯确实在伽利略之前观察到了木星的卫星，但未能理解他所看到的意义（即未能意识到卫星在绕行星运行）。然而，马里乌斯确实将卫星命名为欧罗巴、伊奥、盖尼米德和卡利斯托——这些名字至今仍在使用。马里乌斯在1614年出版了一本书，详细介绍了木星卫星的轨道。他给出的数据比伽利略的更准确，因此这令人信服地表明，伽利略错误地认为马里乌斯可能从未观察到木星的卫星。是否可能，好战的路德教徒马里乌斯，被坚定的天主教徒伽利略更猛烈地攻击，部分原因是他们的宗教分歧？看来马里乌斯在声称优先权方面确实越界了，但与此同时，伽利略在攻击马里乌斯时也越界了，所以我们宣布这场竞赛是（不太光彩的）平局！

马里乌斯 无疑是用望远镜观测仙女座星系的第一人，尽管他当然不知道自己正在观测的是一个遥远的恒星系统。他在1614年的 Mundus Iovialis Ⓣ（《木星世界》）中报告了这一点。他还出版了一本关于1618年彗星的书。

Simon Mayr is also known as Marius or Mayer but we shall use the version Mayr throughout this biography. His father, Reichart Mayr, was mayor of Gunzenhausen in 1576 which might suggest that the family were reasonably well off. However, Simon was sent in 1586 to Margrave's academy in Heilsbronn, a school for boys who came from poor families yet showed marked academic promise. The school's purpose was to train boys for the Lutheran ministry. While at this school he became interested in astronomy and in 1594 he began to make astronomical and meteorological observations. In 1596 a comet was seen and Mayr made observations which he incorporated in a publication. In 1599 he published his astronomical tables.

He studied at Margrave's academy until 1601, but by this time his publications had earned him a good reputation as a mathematician and astronomer. In that year he was appointed mathematician to the Margrave of Ansbach. He was sent to Prague, with a letter of recomendation dated 22 May 1601, to study under Tycho Brahe. He remained there for four months learning to use Brahe's instruments. Brahe died in October of that year, but Mayr had already left since we know he passed through Moravia on 25 September on his way to Vienna and then further south. He then went to Padua where he studied medicine. Mayr was admitted to the Association of German Students of Arts at the University of Padua on 18 December 1601, donating 6 Venetian lire to the association (he donated 10 lire in each of the following four years). He became proctor of the association on 5 March 1604, then on 27 July 1604 he was elected librarian to serve until 14 April 1605. His actions in this capacity contributed to him earning a poor reputation for after he had left Padua on 1 July 1605 [1]:-

The association's official minutes for 24 July record that he had misinformed it about the German law students' attitude towards an impending election.

Mayr seems to have been a militant Lutheran and this may have contributed to his actions when in a position of authority in the association. The other event which contributed to his poor reputation concerned a student Baldessar Capra whom he began to tutor in 1602. Mayr and Capra observed a nova which was visible in 1604 and Mayr helped Capra write a book on the nova under Capra's name. There was nothing wrong in this but, in 1607, Capra published a manual which he claimed he had written although it had in fact been written by Galileo. For this Capra was expelled from the university but Mayr, who had left Italy by this time, was thought to be implicated in the fraud. Galileo certainly thought so, but he chose not to name Mayr explicitely but described him as his "old adversary", and much worse as a "poisonous reptile" and an "enemy of all mankind".

He returned to Germany in 1605 to be both mathematician and physician to the Margraves - Christian and Joachin Ernst - in the city of Ansbach. In 1606 he married Felicitas Lauer, the daughter of his publisher. He published the first German translation of Books I to VI of Euclid's Elements in 1609. In fact 1609 became a crucial year for Mayr and would lead to a serious dispute with Galileo where this time he named him and wrote a strong condemnation of him which we quote from below.

Having heard that a telescope was being sold at the Frankfurt Fair in 1608, Mayr constructed his own. It took him about a year before he had one of sufficient quality to make astronomical observations and claimed to have observed the moons of Jupiter in December of 1609. If that is true his observation is a month before that of Galileo. His claim is made in his 1614 book entitled Mundus Iovialis anno M.DC.IX Detectus Ope Perspicilli Belgici Ⓣ , where he states that he began observing in late November 1609 recorded his observations from 29 December. However, Galileo hotly disputed Mayr's claims writing in the Assayer (1623) [4] (see also [5]):-

Of such usurpers I might name not a few, but I shall pass them over now in silence, as it is customary for first offences to receive less severe punishment than subsequent ones. But I shall not remain silent any longer about a second offender who has tried too audaciously to do to me the very same thing which he did many years ago by appropriating the invention of my geometric compass, despite the fact that I had many years previously shown it and discussed it before a large number of gentlemen and had finally made it public in print. May I be pardoned if, against my nature, my habit, and my present intentions - I show resentment and cry out, perhaps with too much bitterness, about a thing which I have kept to myself these many years. I speak of Simon Mayr of Gunzenhausen; he it was in Padua, where I resided at the time, who set forth in Latin the use of the said compass of mine and, appropriating it to himself, had one of his pupils print this under his name. Forthwith, perhaps to escape punishment, he departed immediately for his native land, leaving his pupil in the lurch as the saying goes; and against the latter, in the absence of Simon Mayr, I was obliged to proceed in the manner which is set forth in the Defence which I then wrote and published. Four years after the publication of my 'Sidereal Messenger', this same fellow, desiring as usual to ornament himself with the labours of others, did not blush to make himself the author of the things I had discovered and printed in that work. Publishing under the title of 'The Jovian World', he had the temerity to claim that he had observed these Medicean planets which revolve about Jupiter before I had done so. But because it rarely happens that truth allows herself to be suppressed by falsehood, you may see how he himself, through his carelessness and lack of understanding, gives me in that very work of his the means of convicting him by irrefutable testimony and revealing unmistakably his error, showing not only that he did not observe the said stars before me but even that he did not certainly see them until two years afterwards; and I say moreover that it may be affirmed very probably that he never observed them at all.
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Next, notice the craft with which he tries to show himself prior to me. I wrote in my 'Sidereal Messenger' of making my first observation on the seventh of January, 1610, continuing then with others on the succeeding nights. Along comes Mayr, and, appropriating my very observations, he prints in the title page of his book and again in the opening part of his work that he had already made his observations in the year 1609, trying to give people the idea that he was first. The earliest observation that he produces as made by him is the second one made by me; yet he announces it as made in the year 1609. What he neglects to mention to the reader that since he is outside our church and has not accepted the Gregorian calendar, the seventh day of January of 1610 for us Catholics, is the same as the twenty-eighth day of December of 1609 for those heretics. So much for the priority of his pretended observations.

Although it is impossible to prove whether his claim is true or false, the general opinion among historians of science is that Mayr did observe the moons of Jupiter before Galileo, but failed to understand the significance of what he saw (i.e. failed to realise that the moons were orbiting the planet). Mayr did, however, name the moons Europa, Io, Ganymede and Callisto - the names by which they are still known. Mayr published a book giving details of the orbits of the moons of Jupiter in 1614. The data he gave is more accurate than that of Galileo, so this shows convincingly that Galileo was wrong in believing that Mayr may never have observed the moons of Jupiter at all. Is it possible that Mayr, the militant Lutheran, may have been attacked more vigorously by Galileo, the staunch Catholic, partly as a result of their religious differences? It would appear that Mayr did overstep the mark in his claims of priority, but at the same time Galileo overstepped the mark in his attack on Mayr, so we declare the contest a (not too honourable) draw!

Mayr was the certainly first to observe the Andromeda galaxy with a telescope, although of course he had no notion that he was observing a distant system of stars. He reports this in his Mundus Iovialis Ⓣ of 1614. He also published a book on the comets of 1618.