{{Short description|German mathematician and astronomer}} '''Valentinus Otho''' (also '''Valentin Otto'''; born around 1545–46 possibly in Magdeburg – 8 April 1603 in Heidelberg) was a German mathematician and astronomer.
== Life ==
In 1573 he came to Wittenberg, proposing to Johannes Praetorius an approximation of pi as <math> \pi \approx \tfrac {355} {113} </math> (now known as ''milü'', as named by its first discover, the Chinese mathematician Zu Chongzhi).
In 1575 he supported Georg Joachim Rheticus in his trigonometric tables. The next year they went to Kaschau in Hungary where Rheticus died. Thus, Otho inherited the De revolutionibus manuscript of Nicolaus Copernicus that Rheticus had published in 1543 in Nuremberg.
Otho became Professor for mathematics in Wittenberg, but when the rulers of Saxony did not support the tables, he moved to Heidelberg where Elector Friedrich IV sponsored the '’Opus Palatinum de Triangulis’’ in 1596.
== Work == * ''Opus Palatinum de Triangulis'', 1596 (original manuscript available [http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_1720 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606075803/http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_1720 |date=2013-06-06 }}) * ''De triangulis globi sine angulo recto libri quinque''
== External links == * Cantor, Moritz: [http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/helios/fachinfo/www/math/htmg/Welcome.html/ Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik 1550-1600 Kapitel 68] * {{cite journal|first=Erna|last=Hilfstein|title=Was Valentinus Otho a Professor at the Univ. of Heidelberg?|journal=Organon|volume=22-23|pages=221–225|year=1986|url=http://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media/files/Organon/Organon-r1986_1987-t22_23/Organon-r1986_1987-t22_23-s221-225/Organon-r1986_1987-t22_23-s221-225.pdf}}.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Otho, Valentinus}} Category:1603 deaths Category:16th-century German mathematicians Category:16th-century German astronomers Category:Year of birth uncertain Category:Thomaskantors Category:16th-century German writers Category:16th-century German male writers
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