Galileo's handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text
science.org
science.org
The historian was looking for conceptual connections between Ptolemy and Galileo, but the discovery of Galileo’s handwriting in Ptolemy’s book seemed to be a surprise.
I suppose that checking early printings of key works looking for annotations is a pretty standard thing to do now.
I would really love to hear about this. (:
Probably the most impressive effort I stumbled upon was a woman from rural Indiana who collected (and typed up) thousands of pages of local history & genealogy in the mid-20th century. Was interesting reading personal accounts of Morgan’s Raid, for example.
It's relatively recent that we've found out some of these "universal" rules might not have been so important all along and together with technology as another factor things changed.
In other words: Today some of those will cost more than a Ferrari to make. They use Vellum paper that is much better that today's but require killing hundreds of animals each.
Only very rich people could afford that. I had access to European books collections of the 16th that are in Color, much much better than any normal book we have.
If you think about that it is normal. Color require more printing plates in a printer, but just changing your ink if you do it manually.
Yes, but also, it's more of byproduct. You raise sheep for wool, they're going to lamb every year, you eat most of the lambs, someone buys some of the skins to turn onto vellum.
The processing to produce vellum would be expensive, and not something every shepherd would be making at home, but the input sheepskin would be plentiful.
A 16th-century formal book like this would be the gold standard to replicate if you want to make "serious" texts. And yes, in scientific literature, the "serious" text is a narrow target and far narrower than you might expect from the possible variation in a handmade artisanal work. Mostly because when everything is "custom", standardization and regular structure is exceptional
Where's the article wrong?
If you copy the pythagorean theorem onto a page and cross it out, would you be "defacing an ancient text"?
"Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity."
Perhaps you are mixing up "ancient" and "prehistoric".
According to history, the Caliph once back off his plan of conquering Constantinople (that were later achieved by Ottoman Caliph Fatih) due the Roman (Byzantine) offered him an offer he cannot refused, the original copy of Ptolemy Almagest as important part of the truce arrangements. He certainly capable of overcoming and conquering the Constatinople since during his time, Afghanistan was conquered under Islamic rule for hundred of years that modern Russia and USA cannot achieved. The fact that his mother Marajil, was a princess originally from Afghanistan. This is where the popular saying that asserted only Afghanistan people can conquer Afghanistan. Point in case, the most recent Afghanistan conqurer was Mughal Empire, who was originated from Indian sub-continent Afghanistan. During his time, Al-Khwarizmi published his infamous Algebra book namely Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah (The Concise Book of Calculation by Restoration and Balancing), where we got the word algebra, and from his name Al-Khwarizmi now we have the word "algorithm" [2].
In addition to having translation Baitul Hikmah in Baghdad, Iraq and in other Islamic knowledge center in Toledo Spain (before fall to Spanish Christian and started the European Renaissance), the Islamic civilization also engaged in contributing to science, math, astronomy, etc. Al-Haitham (Alhazen), the founder of optics, and he's also the founder of modern scientific methodology [3].
Having said that, there several Islamic astronomers (Arab/Persian/etc) already proposing against the geocentric idea that most probably that was inspired Galileo. I think he most probably did not come with the original idea of heliocentric model and the Islamic astromoners mosy probably have proposed it before Galileo, but he failed to credit them properly as normally practiced by European scientists at the time.
[1] al-Ma'mun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%27mun
[2] Graeco-Arabic translation movement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeco-Arabic_translation_move...
[3] Ibn al-Haytham:
Math can be hard, but calling that book "infamous" is a bit too much... /s
Al-Ma'mun failed to conquer Byzantium and died while preparing his next attempt to do so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma'mun
He cannot possibly have been the patron of the Almagest as Ptolemy lived centuries before he did. Maybe you mean of a translation.
Everyone knows Galileo did not originate a heliocentric model, because he was promoting the Copernican model.
Heliocentric models had been proposed by ancient Greeks, but the Copernican model was a huge advance. There is big difference between just speculating that the sun was the centre of the the universe and an actual mathematical mode.
There is a lot more to the scientific method than al-Haytham's minor contribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
The Almagest version of the Galileo notes in the OP article is the Latin translation of the Arabic translation by Gerard of Cremona in Toledo around 1175. This makes Al-Ma'mun the patron of Almagest [1].
I've also mentioned that according to history he accepted the offer of the original copy of Almagest (Almajisti) in Greek from the Roman (Byzantine) emperor the time for a truce.
>Heliocentric models had been proposed by ancient Greeks, but the Copernican model was a huge advance. There is big difference between just speculating that the sun was the centre of the the universe and an actual mathematical mode.
The Islamic scholars were not speculating they were the original and earlier researchers of the heliocentric model that Copernicus and Galileo were famous for. It's not even an exxageration to say that both of them were very highly dependent of Islamic scholars work on the required mathematics and the earlier astronomy works (translations, original books contributions, cellestial tables like al-Zij the 11th-century Toledan Tables) as the OP article indicated. Most of these original works by Islamic have been lost and many have not throughly studied. I will argue that Copernicus himself most probably plagiarated some if not all his works from the Islamic scholars wothout properly attributing the original Islamic scholars' sources. Heck the so called telescope invention by Galileo was invented by Islamic scientists several hundreds years before him [2].
>There is a lot more to the scientific method than al-Haytham's minor contribution
Al-Haytham or Alhazen is father of scientific methods, nothing minor about that. One of his famous work of hundreds of books was his seven volumes work in the form His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Book of Optics), written during 1011–1021, only survived in a Latin edition. Guess what, Isaac Newton did not even bother to cite and refer to these seminal books by Al-Haytham when he wrote his masterpiece three volumes book on optics namely Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light published in English in 1704. For this I will confidently say that Newton of plagiarism since he definitely know about these books in Latin since he's highly proficient in Latin. Heck, Isaac he wrote his greatest masterpiece, the Principia Mathematica, entirely in Latin.
The will and audacity to whitewash Islamic scholar contributions are beyond believe. They even had to change the name from Ibnu Sina to Avicennia, Al-Haytham to Alhazen, Ibnu Rush to Averroes, etc. These Arabics name can be represented in Latin easily. Imagine renaming Ramanujan as Rothman.
[1] Gerard of Cremona’s Latin translation of the Almagest and the revision of tables
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00218286221140848
[2] How a Muslim invented the Telescope centuries before Galileo:
https://www.secondgoldenage.com/p/how-a-muslim-invented-the-...
Then, first heliocentrism with some approximations of size and distance, as far as I know was Aristarchus of Samos, but there is not much that we know about it. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
I have replied to the other users comments, please check them out.
The Toledan school/library/knowledge centers were not established by king Alfonso, it was continued by him when he captured Toledo from the Islamic Spain Empire in 11th CE [1]. Case in point, the venerable and infamous Toledan Tables were compiled in the 11th century (around 1080) by a group of Arabic astronomers in Toledo, Spain (Al-Andalus), led by the renowned astronomer Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (known in Latin as Arzachel). They were essentially the Zij of Toledo, drawing heavily on earlier zijat from the Islamic world, like those of al-Khwarizmi and al-Battani [2].
The Andalusian parts, however, continue under the muslim rule for several centuries until the genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the muslim and the jews during the final phase of Reconquista in the 15th CE. It ended nearly 800 years of muslim era in Spain which is so far longer than European have been in the American continents [3].
Credit to the Spanish and the European when they make the most of the capture of Toledo centers with all the translated and original books, thus kickstarted the Renaissance age, since before they were in the dark ages [4].
Another fun facts, the Almagest version of the Galileo notes in the OP article is the Latin translation of Almagest by Gerard of Cremona in Toledo around 1175, from the Arabic translation of Almagest performed in the House of Wisdom (or Baitul Hikmah). This makes Al-Ma'mun the patron of the Almagest mentioned the OP article [5].
[1] Reconquista:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista
[2] Toledan Tables:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledan_Tables
[3] Siege of Toledo (1085):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Toledo_(1085)
[4] Dark Ages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
[5] House of Wisdom:
King Alfonso promoted what Raymund of Toledo started, the former school, and for example the Toledan tables where later updated through the Alfonsine tables[1]. Your example of translation by Gerard of Cremona was under the bishop, not under Muslim rule. I am not neglecting the immense knowledge combined of Latin/Greek to Arab and Al-Andalus scholars, Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) was fundamental and a very important Muslim scholar, who was born and lived in Toledo. I was trying to add the fact that translation was further done under Castilian rule.
Some inaccuracies, maybe not relevant, but for any reading. Toledo in 1085 was not part of an empire, was a small Taifa kingdom, [1]. Also, Spain didn't exist as political entity, and it won't until the marriage of Isabel and Fernando and conquer of Granada, forming modern Spain.
Reconquista is not viewed as an actual historical movement during medieval times, check your own link, it was a 19th century build up nationalistic view. Iberian medieval times are complicated. Dark ages is also a not very used concept anymore, from your own link.
There was 800 years of Muslim rule in some parts of the peninsula, but what that implies compared to America is not clear to me. The Iberian peninsula has been settled with plenty of European, north-African, and middle-east ancestry in current Spaniards[3,4]. Spain (and Portugal also in the Iberian Peninsula :-) ) is the result of this mix, including Tartasso, Iberian, Roman, Al-Andalus, Asturias, ... not a independent entity from them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonsine_tables [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taifa_of_Toledo [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos [4] The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula doi://10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.11.007
It is, as if we refer to Isaac and Albert when speaking about Gravity and Relativity.
Surnames are optional in Italy at that time. Galileo is how he refers to himself and how people refer to him.
Resident of, son of, father of, family of. Leonardo of Pisa of the family of Bonacci being another well known one.
I suppose it is not specific to those cultures and was a more widespread convention.