Philomena of Dacia, Peter

Philomena of Dacia, Peter, or Peter Nightingale, fl. 1291–1303, Danish astronomer and mathematician. He taught at the Univ. of Bologna (1291–92) and in Paris, and was a canon of Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark. His works include Commentarius in Algorismum vulgarum (1291), a commentary on Johannes de Sacrobosco's calculations with Hindu-Arabic numerals, including a method for extracting cube roots; Kalendarium, an astronomical calendar for the years 1292–1369; and Tractatus eclipsorii, a treatise on the construction and use of a tool for computing eclipses of the sun and moon.

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