Between A.D. 800 and 1450, the most important centers for the study of what we now call "the exact sciences" - including the mathematical sciences of arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry and their applications in such fields as astronomy, astrology, geography, cartography, and optics - were not in Europe but in the vast, multinational Islamic world. Research from the last few decades has profoundly changed our understanding of the Islamic scientific tradition. We now know that it was richer and more profound and had more complex relations to other cultures than wehad previously thought. This book offers an overview of this energized field of historical investigation. The areas discussed include cross-cultural transmission; transformations of Greek optics; the philosophy and practice of mathematics; numbers, geometry, and architecture; the transmission of astronomy; and science and medicine in the Maghrib. The emphasis throughout the book is on the transmission of scientific knowledge, either from one culture to another or within the medieval Islamic world. The book also presents many unsolved historical problems, such as the question of when and where the Hindu-Arabic number symbols evolved from the Eastern Islamic forms to the Western Islamic forms, which are virtually identical to the modern forms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.
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About the Author
Jan P. Hogendijk is Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Utrecht. Abdelhamid I. Sabra is Professor of the History of Arabic Science, Emeritus, at Harvard University.
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Format:Hardcover
Many histories of philosophy and physics acknowledge the contributions of the islamic world during the European middle ages, but remain fairly scetchy about the nature of these contributions. This book, a collection of articles on a variety of subjects, fills in the gap.
There are chapters on optics and architecture, and on Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer (965-1039), who showed the faulty assumptions of the Ptolemaeic model long before Copernicus would do the same. A very thorough chapter deals with the origin of numbers.
For a book that is primarily directed at an academic audience, this one has a broad scope, making it suited for the casual reader as well.
There are chapters on optics and architecture, and on Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer (965-1039), who showed the faulty assumptions of the Ptolemaeic model long before Copernicus would do the same. A very thorough chapter deals with the origin of numbers.
For a book that is primarily directed at an academic audience, this one has a broad scope, making it suited for the casual reader as well.
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