Download or read book Studies in Medieval Astronomy and Optics written by J.L. Mancha and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this selection of studies, J.L. Mancha explores aspects of the development of medieval optics and astronomy, including some medieval antecedents of the work of early modern astronomers. The articles deal with Latin, Hebrew and Arabic texts, and the process of translation and transmission of knowledge, and focus on three main themes. First, the theory and astronomical use of the pinhole camera in the 12th and 13th centuries; the texts edited here contain a solution to the problem of the formation of images cast by light through triangular apertures, equivalent to Kepler's, a description of the correct procedure for measuring solar apparent diameters using finite apertures, and a derivation of the Sun's eccentricity from its apparent diameters at apogee and perigee. Second, the characteristics of the Latin and Provençal versions of Levi ben Gerson's astronomical work, composed in collaboration with the author, as well as his tables and canons for finding syzygies and the mathematical methods used in the derivation of parameters. Third, different aspects of the survival of homocentric astronomy in the Middle Ages, especially al-Bitruji's model for trepidation and the technique for calculating the hippopede resulting from Eudoxan couples.
Download or read book Studies in Medieval Astronomy and Optics written by J. L. Mancha and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this selection of studies, J.L. Mancha explores aspects of the development of medieval optics and astronomy, including some medieval antecedents of the work of early modern astronomers. The articles deal with Latin, Hebrew and Arabic texts, and the process of translation and transmission of knowledge, and focus on three main themes: the theory and astronomical use of the pinhole camera in the 12th and 13th centuries; the characteristics of the Latin and Provençal versions of Levi ben Gerson's astronomical work; and different aspects of the survival of homocentric astronomy in the Middle Ages, especially al-Bitruji's model for trepidation and the technique for calculating the hippopede resulting from Eudoxan couples.
Download or read book Measuring Shadows written by Raz Chen-Morris and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Measuring Shadows, Raz Chen-Morris demonstrates that a close study of Kepler’s Optics is essential to understanding his astronomical work and his scientific epistemology. He explores Kepler’s radical break from scientific and epistemological traditions and shows how the seventeenth-century astronomer posited new ways to view scientific truth and knowledge. Chen-Morris reveals how Kepler’s ideas about the formation of images on the retina and the geometrics of the camera obscura, as well as his astronomical observations, advanced the argument that physical reality could only be described through artificially produced shadows, reflections, and refractions. Breaking from medieval and Renaissance traditions that insisted upon direct sensory perception, Kepler advocated for instruments as mediators between the eye and physical reality, and for mathematical language to describe motion. It was only through this kind of knowledge, he argued, that observation could produce certainty about the heavens. Not only was this conception of visibility crucial to advancing the early modern understanding of vision and the retina, but it affected how people during that period approached and understood the world around them.
Download or read book Influences written by Mary Quinlan-McGrath and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices. Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also—perhaps even primarily—functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican’s Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays. An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.
Download or read book Astrolabes from Medieval Europe written by David A. King and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-28 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fourth set of studies in the Variorum series by David King, a leading authority on the history of astronomy in Islamic civilization and on medieval astronomical instruments, European as well as Islamic. The first of the eleven studies collected here deals with medieval instruments in general, as precious historical sources. The following papers focus on individual astrolabes from the European Middle Ages and early Renaissance that are of singular historical importance. Two look at the origins of the simple universal horary quadrant and the complicated universal horary dial (navicula). The collection concludes with a list of all known medieval European astrolabes, ordered chronologically by region. Three "landmark" astrolabes are discussed: (1) the earliest known European astrolabe from 10th-century Catalonia, that milieu in which the astrolabe first became known to Europeans; (2) an astrolabe from 14th-century Picardy bearing numerals written in monastic ciphers as well as a later dedication mentioning two friends of Erasmus; (3) the splendid astrolabe presented in 1462 by the German astronomer Regiomontanus to his patron Cardinal Bessarion, with its enigmatic angel and Latin dedication, here presented in the context of other astrolabes of similar design from 15th-century Vienna.
Download or read book A Survey of European Astronomical Tables in the Late Middle Ages written by José Chabás and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a survey of the numerous astronomical tables compiled in the late Middle Ages, which represent a major intellectual enterprise. Such tables were often the best way available at the time for transmitting precise information to the reader.
Download or read book Studies in the History of Culture and Science written by Resianne Fontaine and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-11-11 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An hommage to Gad Freudenthal, this volume offers studies on the history of science and on the role of science in medieval and early-modern Jewish cultures, investigating various aspects of processes of knowledge transfer and scientific cross-cultural contacts,
Download or read book Gersonides written by Ruth Glasner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gersonides was a highly original Jewish philosopher, scientist and biblical exegete, active in Provence in the first half of the fourteenth century. Ruth Glasner explores his impressive achievements, and argues that the key to understanding his originality is his perspective as an applied mathematical scientist. It was this perspective that led him to examine Aristotelianism from directions different from those usually adopted by contemporary scholastic scholars. Gersonides started on his way, as he himself claims, as a 'mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher', who believed in his power to solve the main problems of medieval science. He ended up concentrating on his work as a mathematical astronomer, developing techniques of observation and computation, and somewhat less optimistic about the prospect of scientific knowledge.
Download or read book 2006 written by Massimo Mastrogregori and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-12-23 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Die IBOHS verzeichnet jährlich die bedeutendsten Neuerscheinungen geschichtswissenschaftlicher Monographien und Zeitschriftenartikel weltweit, die inhaltlich von der Vor- und Frühgeschichte bis zur jüngsten Vergangenheit reichen. Sie ist damit die derzeit einzige laufende Bibliographie dieser Art, die thematisch, zeitlich und geographisch ein derart breites Spektrum abdeckt. Innerhalb der systematischen Gliederung nach Zeitalter, Region oder historischer Disziplin sind die Werke nach Autorennamen oder charakteristischem Titelhauptwort aufgelistet.
Download or read book Numerals and Arithmetic in the Middle Ages written by Charles Burnett and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-28 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the third by Charles Burnett in the Variorum series, brings together articles on the different numeral forms used in the Middle Ages, and their use in mathematical and other contexts. Some pieces study the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals into Western Europe, documenting, in more detail than anywhere else, the different forms in which they are found, before they acquired the standard shapes with which we are familiar today. Others deal with experiments with other forms of numeration within Latin script: e.g., using the first nine Roman numerals as symbols with place value, abbreviating the Roman numerals, and using the Latin letters as numerals. The author discusses how different types of numerals are used for different purposes, and the application of numerals to the abacus, and to calculation with pen and ink. The studies include the critical edition of several Latin texts.
Download or read book Islamic Astronomical Tables written by Benno van Dalen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume comprises nine articles on Islamic astronomy published since 1989 by Benno van Dalen. Van Dalen was the first historian of Islamic astronomy who made full use of the new possibilities of computers in the early 1990s. He implemented various statistical and numerical methods that can be used to determine the mathematical properties of medieval astronomical tables, and utilized these to obtain entirely new, until then unattainable historical results concerning the interdependence of individual tables and hence of entire astronomical works. His programmes for analysing tables, making sexagesimal calculations and converting calendar dates continue to be widely used. The five articles in the first part of this collection explain the principles of a range of statistical methods for determining unknown parameter values underlying astronomical tables and present extensive step-by-step examples for their use. The four articles in the second part provide extensive studies of materials in unpublished primary sources on Islamic astronomy that heavily depend on these methods. The volume is completed with a detailed index.
Download or read book The Earth is Our Book written by Natalia Lozovsky and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating study of early geographical knowledge
Download or read book From Sight to Light written by A. Mark Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its inception in Greek antiquity, the science of optics was aimed primarily at explaining sight and accounting for why things look as they do. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the analytic focus of optics had shifted to light: its fundamental properties and such physical behaviors as reflection, refraction, and diffraction. This dramatic shift—which A. Mark Smith characterizes as the “Keplerian turn”—lies at the heart of this fascinating and pioneering study. Breaking from previous scholarship that sees Johannes Kepler as the culmination of a long-evolving optical tradition that traced back to Greek antiquity via the Muslim Middle Ages, Smith presents Kepler instead as marking a rupture with this tradition, arguing that his theory of retinal imaging, which was published in 1604, was instrumental in prompting the turn from sight to light. Kepler’s new theory of sight, Smith reveals, thus takes on true historical significance: by treating the eye as a mere light-focusing device rather than an image-producing instrument—as traditionally understood—Kepler’s account of retinal imaging helped spur the shift in analytic focus that eventually led to modern optics. A sweeping survey, From Sight to Light is poised to become the standard reference for historians of optics as well as those interested more broadly in the history of science, the history of art, and cultural and intellectual history.
Download or read book Principles and Practices in Ancient Greek and Chinese Science written by G.E.R. Lloyd and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-28 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 90 or so articles he has published in the last two decades Professor Lloyd has chosen fifteen of the most important and influential to be reprinted in this collection. They tackle a wide range of problems in ancient Greek and Chinese thought, focussing especially on science but including also medicine, mathematics, philosophy and mythology. Three common themes recur: the ancients' own concern with disciplinary boundaries, their engagement in polemics, and the heterogeneity of different traditions - cultivating different styles of reasoning with different results - in ancient science. Alongside papers that deal with technical issues in the interpretation of our sources, others raise strategic questions to do with the institutional framework of ancient science, the role of literacy in its development, and the underlying ontological and epistemological presuppositions of different groups of ancient investigators. The collection closes with a study in which Lloyd sets out how he sees the further comparative study of ancient science developing. Two of the articles appear here for the first time in English. The others are reprinted in their original form. Supplementary bibliographies are added referring to the most recent scholarship on the issues discussed.
Download or read book The Light Ages written by Seb Falk and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of 2020 by The Telegraph, The Times, and BBC History Magazine An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk. Soaring Gothic cathedrals, violent crusades, the Black Death: these are the dramatic forces that shaped the medieval era. But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses, and mechanical clocks. As medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky, they came to develop a vibrant scientific culture. In The Light Ages, Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on a tour of medieval science through the eyes of one fourteenth-century monk, John of Westwyk. Born in a rural manor, educated in England’s grandest monastery, and then exiled to a clifftop priory, Westwyk was an intrepid crusader, inventor, and astrologer. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars, curing disease, and telling time with an ancient astrolabe, we learn emerging science alongside Westwyk and travel with him through the length and breadth of England and beyond its shores. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy, and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory. The Light Ages offers a gripping story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man in a precarious world and conjures a vivid picture of medieval life as we have never seen it before. An enlightening history that argues that these times weren’t so dark after all, The Light Ages shows how medieval ideas continue to color how we see the world today.
Download or read book Adaptive Optics for Astronomical Telescopes written by John W. Hardy and published by Oxford Optical and Imaging Sci. This book was released on 1998 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book by one of the leaders in adaptive optics covers the fundamental theory and then describes in detail how this technology can be applied to large ground-based telescopes to compensate for the effects of atmospheric turbulence. It includes information on basic adaptive optics components and technology, and has chapters devoted to atmospheric turbulence, optical image structure, laser beacons, and overall system design. The chapter on system design is particularly detailed and includes performance estimation and optimization. Combining a clear discussion of physical principles with numerous real-world examples, this book will be a valuable resource for all graduate students and researchers in astronomy and optics.
Download or read book Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures written by Gad Freudenthal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the first comprehensive overview by world-renowned experts of what we know today of medieval Jews' engagement with the sciences.
