1512 in science

Astronomy

• Possible date – Nicolaus Copernicus begins to write Commentariolus, an abstract of what will eventually become De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; he sends it to other scientists interested in the matter by 1514.

Exploration

• António de Abreu discovers Timor island and reaches the Banda Islands and Seram.
• Francisco Serrão reaches the Moluccas.
• Juan Ponce de León discovers the Turks and Caicos Islands.
• Pedro Mascarenhas discovers Diego Garcia and reaches Mauritius in the Mascarene Islands.

Pharmaceutics

• Hieronymus Brunschwygk's Big Book (of Distillation) describes medicinal herbs and the construction of stills for processing them.

Technology

• Martin Waldseemüller (of the Rhineland) produces and describes the first theodolite (which he calls the polimetrum).

Births

• March 5 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (died 1594)
• approx. date – Robert Recorde, Welsh-born mathematician and physician (died 1558)

Deaths

• February 22 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer (born 1454)
• August 2 – Alessandro Achillini, Italian anatomist (born 1463)
• September 29 – Johannes Engel, German astronomer and physician (born 1453)

References

References

1. Grun, Bernard. (1991). "The Timetables of History". Simon & Schuster.
2. Gingerich, Owen. (2004). "The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus". Walker.
3. Koyré, Alexandre. (1973). "The Astronomical Revolution: Copernicus – Kepler – Borelli". Cornell University Press.
4. In an appendix to [[Gregorius Reisch]]'s ''Margarita Philosophica'', published in [[Strasbourg. Strasburg]].
5. Daumas, Maurice. (1989). "Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and Their Makers". Portman.
6. Mills, John FitzMaurice. (1983). "Encyclopedia of Antique Scientific Instruments". Aurum Press.
7. Johnston, Stephen. (2004). "Recorde, Robert (c.1512–1558)".
8. (18 September 2007). "Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers". Springer Science & Business Media.