Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator

Born: 5 March 1512 in Rupelmonde, Flanders (now Belgium)
Died: 2 Dec 1592 in Duisburg, Duchy of Cleve (now Germany)

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Gerardus Mercator's original name was Gerard de Cremere. Educated at Louvain Mercator was charged with heresy in 1544. Subsequently released he moved to Duisburg where he opened a cartographic workshop.

He is best remembered for the map projection that bears his name which he first used in 1569. He is the first to use the term 'atlas' for a collection of maps. His break from the methods of Ptolemy was as important for geography as was Copernicus for astronomy.

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. H Averdunk and J Müller-Reinhard, Gerardus Mercator und die Geographen unter seinen Nachkommen, Petermanns Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsheft 182 (1914).
  4. A S Osley, Mercator (1969).
  5. K E Kramer, Mercator : eine Biographie (Duisburg, 1980).
  6. G L'E Turner, The three astrolabes of Gerard Mercator, Annals of science 51 (1994), 329-353.
  7. G L'E Turner, 'To find the mind's construction in the face' : the newly-discovered astrolabes of Mercator, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 43 (1994), 16-21. 
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