Download or read book The Exact Sciences in Antiquity written by Otto Neugebauer and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1969-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a series of lectures delivered at Cornell University in the fall of 1949, and since revised, this is the standard non-technical coverage of Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics and astronomy, and their transmission to the Hellenistic world. Entirely modern in its data and conclusions, it reveals the surprising sophistication of certain areas of early science, particularly Babylonian mathematics. After a discussion of the number systems used in the ancient Near East (contrasting the Egyptian method of additive computations with unit fractions and Babylonian place values), Dr. Neugebauer covers Babylonian tables for numerical computation, approximations of the square root of 2 (with implications that the Pythagorean Theorem was known more than a thousand years before Pythagoras), Pythagorean numbers, quadratic equations with two unknowns, special cases of logarithms and various other algebraic and geometric cases. Babylonian strength in algebraic and numerical work reveals a level of mathematical development in many aspects comparable to the mathematics of the early Renaissance in Europe. This is in contrast to the relatively primitive Egyptian mathematics. In the realm of astronomy, too, Dr. Neugebauer describes an unexpected sophistication, which is interpreted less as the result of millennia of observations (as used to be the interpretation) than as a competent mathematical apparatus. The transmission of this early science and its further development in Hellenistic times is also described. An Appendix discusses certain aspects of Greek astronomy and the indebtedness of the Copernican system to Ptolemaic and Islamic methods. Dr. Neugebauer has long enjoyed an international reputation as one of the foremost workers in the area of premodern science. Many of his discoveries have revolutionized earlier understandings. In this volume he presents a non-technical survey, with much material unique on this level, which can be read with great profit by all interested in the history of science or history of culture. 14 plates. 52 figures.

Download or read book A Brief Introduction to Astronomy in the Middle East written by John M. Steele and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle East is the birthplace of astronomy and the centre for its development during the medieval period. In this brief introduction John Steele offers an intriguing insight into Middle Eastern achievements in astronomy and their profound influence on the rest of the world. Amongst other things, the book traces the Late Babylonians' ingenious schemes for modelling planetary motion. It also reveals how medieval Islamic advances in the study of the heavens, and the design of precise astronomical instruments, led to breakthroughs by Renaissance practitioners such as Copernicus and Kepler. An invaluable introduction to one of the oldest sciences in the world.

Download or read book New York Times Saturday Book Review Supplement written by and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 1202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Setting Aside All Authority written by Christopher M. Graney and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Setting Aside All Authority is an important account and analysis of seventeenth-century scientific arguments against the Copernican system. Christopher M. Graney challenges the long-standing ideas that opponents of the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus and Galileo were primarily motivated by religion or devotion to an outdated intellectual tradition, and that they were in continual retreat in the face of telescopic discoveries. Graney calls on newly translated works by anti-Copernican writers of the time to demonstrate that science, not religion, played an important, and arguably predominant, role in the opposition to the Copernican system. Anti-Copernicans, building on the work of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, were in fact able to build an increasingly strong scientific case against the heliocentric system at least through the middle of the seventeenth century, several decades after the advent of the telescope. The scientific case reached its apogee, Graney argues, in the 1651 New Almagest of the Italian Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli, who used detailed telescopic observations of stars to construct a powerful scientific argument against Copernicus. Setting Aside All Authority includes the first English translation of Monsignor Francesco Ingoli’s essay to Galileo (disputing the Copernican system on the eve of the Inquisition’s condemnation of it in 1616) and excerpts from Riccioli's reports regarding his experiments with falling bodies.

Download or read book Mathematics in Ancient Iraq written by Eleanor Robson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental book traces the origins and development of mathematics in the ancient Middle East, from its earliest beginnings in the fourth millennium BCE to the end of indigenous intellectual culture in the second century BCE when cuneiform writing was gradually abandoned. Eleanor Robson offers a history like no other, examining ancient mathematics within its broader social, political, economic, and religious contexts, and showing that mathematics was not just an abstract discipline for elites but a key component in ordering society and understanding the world. The region of modern-day Iraq is uniquely rich in evidence for ancient mathematics because its prehistoric inhabitants wrote on clay tablets, many hundreds of thousands of which have been archaeologically excavated, deciphered, and translated. Drawing from these and a wealth of other textual and archaeological evidence, Robson gives an extraordinarily detailed picture of how mathematical ideas and practices were conceived, used, and taught during this period. She challenges the prevailing view that they were merely the simplistic precursors of classical Greek mathematics, and explains how the prevailing view came to be. Robson reveals the true sophistication and beauty of ancient Middle Eastern mathematics as it evolved over three thousand years, from the earliest beginnings of recorded accounting to complex mathematical astronomy. Every chapter provides detailed information on sources, and the book includes an appendix on all mathematical cuneiform tablets published before 2007.

Download or read book Book Review Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 1558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sourcebook in the Mathematics of Medieval Europe and North Africa written by Victor J. Katz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Europe was a meeting place for the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic civilizations, and the fertile intellectual exchange of these cultures can be seen in the mathematical developments of the time. This sourcebook presents original Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic sources of medieval mathematics, and shows their cross-cultural influences. Most of the Hebrew and Arabic sources appear here in translation for the first time. Readers will discover key mathematical revelations, foundational texts, and sophisticated writings by Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic-speaking mathematicians, including Abner of Burgos's elegant arguments proving results on the conchoid—a curve previously unknown in medieval Europe; Levi ben Gershon’s use of mathematical induction in combinatorial proofs; Al-Mu’taman Ibn Hūd’s extensive survey of mathematics, which included proofs of Heron’s Theorem and Ceva’s Theorem; and Muhyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī’s interesting proof of Euclid’s parallel postulate. The book includes a general introduction, section introductions, footnotes, and references. The Sourcebook in the Mathematics of Medieval Europe and North Africa will be indispensable to anyone seeking out the important historical sources of premodern mathematics.

Download or read book American Journal of Physics written by and published by . This book was released on 1952 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Black Athena Revisited written by Mary R. Lefkowitz and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2014-03-24 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was Western civilization founded by ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians? Can the ancient Egyptians usefully be called black? Did the ancient Greeks borrow religion, science, and philosophy from the Egyptians and Phoenicians? Have scholars ignored the Afroasiatic roots of Western civilization as a result of racism and anti-Semitism? In this collection of twenty essays, leading scholars in a broad range of disciplines confront the claims made by Martin Bernal in Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. In that work, Bernal proposed a radical reinterpretation of the roots of classical civilization, contending that ancient Greek culture derived from Egypt and Phoenicia and that European scholars have been biased against the notion of Egyptian and Phoenician influence on Western civilization. The contributors to this volume argue that Bernal's claims are exaggerated and in many cases unjustified. Topics covered include race and physical anthropology; the question of an Egyptian invasion of Greece; the origins of Greek language, philosophy, and science; and racism and anti-Semitism in classical scholarship. In the conclusion to the volume, the editors propose an entirely new scholarly framework for understanding the relationship between the cultures of the ancient Near East and Greece and the origins of Western civilization. The contributors are: John Baines, professor of Egyptology, University of Oxford Kathryn A. Bard, assistant professor of archaeology, Boston University C. Loring Brace, professor of anthropology and curator of biological anthropology in the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan John E. Coleman, professor of classics, Cornell University Edith Hall, lecturer in classics, University of Reading, England Jay H. Jasanoff, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Linguistics, Cornell University Richard Jenkyns, fellow and tutor, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and university lecturer in classics, University of Oxford Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Wellesley College Mario Liverani, professor of ancient near eastern history, Universita di Roma, 'La Sapienza' Sarah P. Morris, professor of classics, University of California at Los Angeles Robert E. Norton, associate professor of German, Vassar College Alan Nussbaum, associate professor of classics, Cornell University David O'Connor, professor of Egyptology and curator in charge of the Egyptian section of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania Robert Palter, Dana Professor Emeritus of the History of Science, Trinity College, Connecticut Guy MacLean Rogers, associate professor of Greek and Latin and history, Wellesley College Frank M. Snowden, Jr., professor of classics emeritus, Howard University Lawrence A. Tritle, associate professor of history, Loyola Marymount University Emily T. Vermeule, Samuel E. Zemurray, Jr., and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor Emerita, Harvard University Frank J. Yurco, Egyptologist, Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago

Download or read book Planets Potions and Parchments written by Barry Levy and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1990-07-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 200 rare scientific manuscripts, books, maps, amulets, and magical texts have been brought together from renowned collections in Europe, Canada, Israel, Great Britain, and the United States specifically for this exhibition. The most famous among these is a fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls containing chapters 81 to 85 from the Book of Psalms: fragments from the scrolls have been in Canada on only two other occasions. The exhibition will have an Assyrian cuneiform tablet from the seventh century BCE that describes treatments for eye ailments, a first edition Copernicus, and several texts by Maimonides, including one with marginal notes by Martin Luther. Also featured, in a rare Latin translation, is an Arabic medical book written by a Jew, demonstrating the international and inter-faith nature of the medieval scientific endeavour.

Download or read book Rethinking Celtic Art written by Duncan Garrow and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Celtic art' - typified by the iconic shields, swords, torcs and chariot gear we can see in places such as the British Museum - has been studied in isolation from the rest of the evidence from the Iron Age. This book reintegrates the art with the archaeology, placing the finds in the context of our latest ideas about Iron Age and Romano-British society. The contributions move beyond the traditional concerns with artistic styles and continental links, to consider the material nature of objects, their social effects and their role in practices such as exchange and burial. The aesthetic impact of decorated metalwork, metal composition and manufacturing, dating and regional differences within Britain all receive coverage. The book gives us a new understanding of some of the most ornate and complex objects ever found in Britain, artefacts that condense and embody many histories.

Download or read book The Classical Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The American Journal of Science written by and published by . This book was released on 1953 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Soul World and Idea written by Daniel Sherman and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its examination of two of Plato's key works, Soul, World, and Idea: An Interpretation of Plato's Republic and Phaedo reveals the key role that images and our capacity for image-making play in the relationship among soul, world, and Idea. This bookbegins and ends with a reading of the Republic. Daniel Sherman turns midway to the Phaedo to further analyze the nature of the soul and its relation to the nature of the Ideas, then returns to apply the conclusions to the rest of the Republic. Sherman's focus is on the ontological and epistemological argument, including attention to the dramatic detail. He argues that the ontology of the Ideas in the Republic and the Phaedo is inseparable from the ontology of human being, that is, from the structure and life of the soul. On this interpretation, the Ideas are seen as indeed objective but as in a sense also a product of a permanent dialectical relationship. The Ideas, though something more than concepts, do not have any real independent existence outside of this human dialectical triad of world, soul and Idea. The stability of the Ideas need not be grounded in a static otherworldliness, and the condition of meaning is not temporally prior to human existence in general. The result is a new interpretation concerning the realm of the Ideas, the immortality of the soul, and the lived in world of their interaction in the production of interpretive images. Sherman argues that the platonic soul is immortaland the Ideas eternal wholly and solely in human (dialogical) activity--the rest is muthologia--and that the world of our experience is a product of an ongoing act of interpretation or dianoetic dialegesthai. This reinterpretation of the platonic Ideas will be especially interesting to students and scholars of classics, ancient philosophy, and continental philosophy.

Download or read book The Mathematics of Egypt Mesopotamia China India and Islam written by Victor J. Katz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-05 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades it has become obvious that mathematics has always been a worldwide activity. But this is the first book to provide a substantial collection of English translations of key mathematical texts from the five most important ancient and medieval non-Western mathematical cultures, and to put them into full historical and mathematical context. The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam gives English readers a firsthand understanding and appreciation of these cultures' important contributions to world mathematics. The five section authors--Annette Imhausen (Egypt), Eleanor Robson (Mesopotamia), Joseph Dauben (China), Kim Plofker (India), and J. Lennart Berggren (Islam)--are experts in their fields. Each author has selected key texts and in many cases provided new translations. The authors have also written substantial section introductions that give an overview of each mathematical culture and explanatory notes that put each selection into context. This authoritative commentary allows readers to understand the sometimes unfamiliar mathematics of these civilizations and the purpose and significance of each text. Addressing a critical gap in the mathematics literature in English, this book is an essential resource for anyone with at least an undergraduate degree in mathematics who wants to learn about non-Western mathematical developments and how they helped shape and enrich world mathematics. The book is also an indispensable guide for mathematics teachers who want to use non-Western mathematical ideas in the classroom.

Download or read book The Discoverers written by Daniel J. Boorstin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-01-26 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. In the compendious history, Boorstin not only traces man's insatiable need to know, but also the obstacles to discovery and the illusion that knowledge can also put in our way. Covering time, the earth and the seas, nature and society, he gathers and analyzes stories of the man's profound quest to understand his world and the cosmos.

Download or read book Antiquity and Capitalism written by John R. Love and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious study which addresses the classic questions of the emergence, flowering and decline of ancient civilization from a fresh perspective - that of the great German sociologist Max Weber.