Description:

Rittenhouse David

 



David Rittenhouse Astronomical Math Calculations With Trajectory Drawings, Including the Symbol for Jupiter.

 

Original Colonial letter to David Rittenhouse, concerning an "instrument", being sent from his brother. Then a good portion of this letter was used by Rittenhouse to calculate numerous formulas and equations such as " … from Equinox = 44.23/ Jupiter 4.59 … Retrograde from Jupiter 49.22 …" (Jupiter is represented as a symbol) The years 1788-1792 are written, with month's Feb & March, and their calculations. In 1769 David Rittenhouse made the first American telescope for the transit of Venus. In 1792, in mathematics he solved the problem "of finding the sum of the several powers of the sines"

 

Single page letter with heavily written with mathematical calculations on recto and verso, 6' x 5.5". Professional restoration to small corner loss. Presented in a stunning gilt toned wood frame, matted with three windows to a completed size of 24.5' x 15.5". Verso with a cut out window to show the back of the letter. A fascinating piece of astrological history!

 

David Rittenhouse is often cited as America's second foremost scientist of the 18th century, behind only Benjamin Franklin. Almost entirely self-taught, he studied books inherited from his uncle, a furniture maker, and used his uncle's tools to construct clocks as a teenager. He soon had a successful business building mathematical and astronomical instruments, and also worked as a surveyor. He designed and built orreries (apparatus for modeling the positions and movements of the planets), constructed his own observatory at his father's farm, and in 1768 used a telescope of his own design to note that Venus has an atmosphere. He also wrote respected papers on mathematics, experimented with magnetism and electricity, and in 1763 surveyed the Pennsylvania-Maryland border using his own hand-made instruments.


During the American Revolution he served in the Pennsylvania Assembly, and chaired the Council of Safety, which had de facto control of the colony's government during the drafting of the Pennsylvania's Constitution. He oversaw manufacture of weapons for Pennsylvania's colonial rebels, gathering lead weights from Philadelphia's clocks and machinery and substituting iron weights, diverting the lead to use for musket shot. In the newfound nation of America he was appointed by George Washington as the first director of the US Mint, and hand-struck the nation's first coins. He is the namesake of Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. His nephew, William Barton, was co-designer of the Great Seal of the United States.



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