ASTRONOMER

Ferdinand Verbiest

1623 - 1688

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Ferdinand Verbiest, (9 October 1623 – 28 January 1688) was a Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty. He was born in Pittem near Tielt in the County of Flanders (now part of Belgium). He is known as Nan Huairen (南懷仁) in Chinese. He was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer and proved to the court of the Kangxi Emperor that European astronomy was more accurate than Chinese astronomy. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Ferdinand Verbiest is the 92nd most popular astronomer (down from 47th in 2019), the 119th most popular biography from Belgium (down from 86th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular Belgian Astronomer.

Ferdinand Verbiest was a Belgian Jesuit missionary who was sent to China to teach Western science and mathematics to the Chinese. He is most famous for being the first person to measure the length of an arc of a meridian, which is the distance from the North Pole to the Equator.

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Among ASTRONOMERS

Among astronomers, Ferdinand Verbiest ranks 92 out of 644. Before him are Eugene Merle Shoemaker, George O. Abell, Mariam al-Asturlabi, Petrus Apianus, Pieter van Musschenbroek, and Jacques Cassini. After him are Varāhamihira, Fritz Zwicky, Angelo Secchi, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters, and Henry Norris Russell.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1623, Ferdinand Verbiest ranks 3. Before him are Blaise Pascal, and William Petty. After him are Antonio Cesti, Margravine Hedwig Sophie of Brandenburg, Zhu Youlang, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Christian Louis I, François de Laval, Reinier Nooms, and Algernon Sidney. Among people deceased in 1688, Ferdinand Verbiest ranks 5. Before him are Henry Morgan, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, Claude Perrault, and John Bunyan. After him are Joachim von Sandrart, Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange, Narai, Philip de Koninck, Constantine Phaulkon, Philippe Quinault, and Abraham Duquesne.

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In Belgium

Among people born in Belgium, Ferdinand Verbiest ranks 119 out of 1,190. Before him are Jean-Marie Pfaff (1953), Eugène Ysaÿe (1858), Elio Di Rupo (1951), Félicien Rops (1833), Leo Baekeland (1863), and Henri Pirenne (1862). After him are Adriaen Brouwer (1605), Paul Deschanel (1855), Jacques Arcadelt (1507), Lamoral, Count of Egmont (1522), Frans Snyders (1579), and Catharina van Hemessen (1528).

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Among ASTRONOMERS In Belgium

Among astronomers born in Belgium, Ferdinand Verbiest ranks 2. Before him are Adolphe Quetelet (1796). After him are Petrus Plancius (1552), Eric Walter Elst (1936), Eugène Joseph Delporte (1882), Henri Debehogne (1928), Philippe van Lansberge (1561), George Van Biesbroeck (1880), and Marcel Minnaert (1893).

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