David Gans (Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן שְׁלֹמֹה גנז; 1541–1613), also known as Rabbi Dovid Solomon Ganz, was a German-Jewish chronicler, mathematician, historian, astronomer and astrologer. He is the author of Tzemach David (1592) and therefore also known by this title, the צמח דוד.
Biography David was born in Lippstadt, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. His father, Shlomo, was a moneylender. He studied rabbinical literature in Bonn and Frankfurt am Main, then in Kraków under Moses Isserles. Later he attended the lectures of the Maharal of Prague and of his brother, Rabbi Sinai. They introduced philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy into the circle of their studies, and from them Gans received the impulse to devote himself to these branches of science. He lived for a time in Nordheim (where he studied Euclid), passed several years in his native city of Lippstadt, and then in about 1564 settled in Prague. There he came into contact with Kepler and Tycho Brahe, and took part for three consecutive days in astronomical observations at the Prague observatory. He was charged with the translation of the Alfonsine Tables from Hebrew into German by Tycho Brahe. Gans was the first...
Extract from Wikipedia: “David Gans” (CC BY-SA 4.0).
