癸卯元历与牛顿的月球运动理论

GUI MAO YUAN LI(1742-1911) AND ISAAC NEWTON'S THEORY OF THE MOON'S MOTION

清乾隆七年（1742年）颁行的时宪历以雍正元年癸卯（1723年）为元，史称癸卯元历（1742－1911年）。其中引用了牛顿的月球运动理论。18世纪上半叶，牛顿的《自然哲学之数学原理》（1687年，拉丁文第一版；传入中国的是1726年拉丁文第三版）、以及与牛顿早期的“月球运动理论”相关的解释性论著的相继传入，并经耶稣会士的译解工作，对时宪历的变革起到直接的推动作用。

Li Xiang Kao Cheng Hou Bian (1742, Sequel to the Compendium of Observational and Computational Astronomy, and one of the Chinese astronomical theories and Chinese calendars) was derived from Isaac Newton's theory of the Moon's motion.In the first half of the 18th century, Isaac Newton's original masterworks, especially the authoritative Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1726, 3rd Latin edition), together with contemporary commentaries, among which are David Gregory's Astronomiae Physicae et Geometricae Elementa (1726, 2nd Latin edition), William Whiston's Praelectiones Astronomicae (1707, 1st Latin edition), and two volumes of John Harris' Lexicon Technicum (the former in the 3rd edition of 1716, the latter in the 1st edition of 1710), were brought into China.From 1736 to 1742, in order to compile a new Chinese calendar, Roman Catholic missionaries Ignatius Koegler (1680-11746) and Andre Pereira (1692-1743) cooperated with many Chinese astronomers, and turned out Li Xiang Kao Cheng Hou Bian.Gui Mao Yuan Li (one of the Chinese calendars), as an appendix to Li Xiang Kao Cheng Hou Bian, had been put to use from 1742 to 1911, and was probably made with reference to the astronomical solar tables and lunar tables in William Whiston's Praelectiones Astronomicae. More importantly, Ignatius Koegler and Andre Pereira had directly introduced Newton'sbasic concepts and calculus methods, which were relative to the seven inequalities and perturbations of the Moon's motion in Newton's Principia (1726), into Li Xiang Kao Cheng Hou Bian, without distinct expression of Newton's theory of universal gravitation which was in contradiction to missionary's doctrine.