《天步真原》与哥白尼天文学在中国的早期传播

Tianbu Zhenyuan and the Early Diffusion of Copernican Astronomy in China

文章指出，由穆尼阁翻译的《天步真原》一书的底本是比利时天文学家兰斯玻治的《永恒天体运动表》。兰斯玻治是哥白尼学说的信从者，他的天文表是以日心地动理论为基础编制的。从穆尼阁翻译该表的目的及一些中国学者曾从他那里了解到西方地动说的事实来看，《天步真原》的原本中很可能使用的是日心地动模型，而薛凤祚在将该书辑入《历学会通》时对这些模型中的日地位置作了人为的颠倒。

This paper points out that the Western source of the Tianbu Zhenyuan, which was translated into Chinese by Jean-Nicolas Smogolenski in the early Qing dynasty, turns out to be the Tabulae motuum coelestium perpetuae composed by Philip von Lansberge, a Belgium astronomer who was an exponent of Copernican astronomy and based his tables on the heliocentric system.Judged from Smogolenski's purpose in translating these tables and the fact that several Chinese scholars learnt the Western geo-kinetic doctrine from him, it seems quite plausible that Smogolenski used heliocentric models in his original translation of these tables, whereas when Xue Fengzuo adapted the tables for his Lixue Huitong, the positions of the sun and the earth in these models were interchanged.