Which 1551 Erasmus Reinhold tables helped spread Copernican calculation methods?

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The 1551 tables by Erasmus Reinhold that helped spread Copernican calculation methods were the Prutenic Tables.

Reinhold published the Prutenic, or Prussian, Tables in 1551. He based their calculations on Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus, published in 1543, and designed them to replace the older Alfonsine Tables. Although Reinhold did not necessarily endorse every philosophical implication of heliocentrism, his practical tables made Copernican mathematical techniques useful to working astronomers and calendar makers.

The tables became especially influential in German-speaking regions. Their popularity helped establish Copernicus's reputation as a skilled mathematical astronomer and disseminated procedures for calculating the positions of celestial bodies. They were also used in the astronomical work that supported the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582.

The Prutenic Tables were not as accurate as Kepler's later Rudolphine Tables, which appeared in 1627 and used Tycho Brahe's much more precise observations. The Alfonsine Tables were older medieval tables, while the Toledan Tables belonged to an earlier Arabic-and-Latin astronomical tradition. Thus “Prutenic” is the distinctive answer for Reinhold's 1551 publication.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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