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I don't mean the caption at the top. I'm referring to the letters on the diagram itself: http://i.imgur.com/Bj31AxJ.jpg

aha, well it does look like Old Turkic Alphabet[0], I am not sure.

0.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Turkic_alphabet#Table_of_ch...

Edit: Some characters don't seem to render properly, an Image seems more practical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Turkic_alphabet#mediaviewer...

Do you know why he didn't just use Arabic characters? Based on a brief survey of the Arabic Wikipedia, it looks like Latin letters are standard for variables in math these days, but what was the reason for using non-Arabic characters back then?

It is odd, given that other scientists did use Arabic characters to notate their diagrams (notably, Al-khwarizmi and Ibn Al-Haytham). Perhaps it's because of his roots.

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