Boazum

Infobox City
official_name = Littenseradiel


mapsize = 280px
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = Netherlands
subdivision_type1 = Province
subdivision_name1 = Friesland
area_footnotes = (2006)
area_total_km2 = 132.57
area_land_km2 = 130.74
area_water_km2 = 1.84
population_as_of = 1 January, 2007
population_note = Source: CBS, [http://statline.cbs.nl/ Statline] .
settlement_type = Municipality
population_total = 10869
population_density_km2 = 83
timezone = CET
utc_offset = +1
timezone_DST = CEST
utc_offset_DST = +2

Boazum (Dutch: Bozum) is a Frisian village in the rural municipality of Littenseradiel with an approximate population of 400. It is one of the first described communities in Friesland. The Boazum church is an example of romanesque twelfth-century architecture and possesses an Ottonian fresco portraying a beardless Christ.

A famous Boazumer (although mainly by proxy) was the reverend Eelco Alta (1723-1798), whose treatise "Philosophical Considerations concerning the Conjunction of the Planets Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. To be happening on the Eighth of May 1774, and about the Possible and Likely Astronomical and Physical Consequences of this Conjunction" [ [Eelco Alta. "Philosophische Bedenkingen over de Conjunctie van de Planeten Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercurius en de Maan. Op den Agtsten May 1774. staande te gebeuren, en wel over de Mogelyke en Waarschynelyke Sterre en Natuurkundige Gevolgen deezer Conjunctie". Boazum, 1774.] ] from 1774 was long said to have motivated Eise Eisinga to build his famous planetarium. According to the canonicised view, Alta stated that the upcoming conjunction of the planets with the sun would herald the apocalypse, and through his planetarium, Eisinga was able to prove that in fact, the conjunction would not take place. Modern research has however come to the more prosaic conclusion that Eisinga was mainly motivated by practical motives - most of all not having to calculate the orbits and respective positions of the planets and the sun on paper, but instead using his planetarium as a reference. [Huib J. Zuidervaart, Speculatie, wetenschap en vernuft. Fysica en astronomie volgens Wytze Foppes Dongjuma (1707-1778), instrumentmaker te Leeuwarden (Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy, 1995).]

References

External links

* [http://www.wumkes.nl/index.php?volg=1&id=167 Alta's treatise in PDF format] (Digital Library of Friesland)
* [http://home.hetnet.nl/~jvkuler/bozum.htm Zicht op Bozum] (old photographs; in Dutch).