Nicolaus Reimers

Who was Nicolaus Reimers?

Nicolaus Reimers Baer, also Reimarus Ursus, Nicolaus Reimers Bär or Nicolaus Reymers Baer was an astronomer and imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II. Due to his family's background, he was also known as Bär, Latinized to Ursus.

Reimers was born at Hennstedt and received hardly any education in his youth, herding pigs until the age of 18. Yet, Heinrich Rantzau discovered his talents and employed him from 1574 to 1584 as geometer. Accordingly, Reimers in 1583 published his Geodaesia Ranzoviana. Rantzau also arranged a meeting with Tycho Brahe.

From 1586 to 1587, Reimers stayed at the court of William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in Kassel, where he met Swiss instrument maker Jost Bürgi. Both were autodidacts and thus had a similar background. As Bürgi did not understand Latin, Reimers translated Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium into German for Bürgi. A copy of the translation survived in Graz, it is thus called "Grazer Handschrift".

Reimers was a bitter rival of Tycho Brahe after he tried to claim the Tychonic system, which is also attributed to Paul Wittich, as his own.