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Quadrant (instrument)
A quadrant is an instrument used to measure angles up to 90°. Different versions of this instrument could be used to calculate various readings, such as longitude, latitude, and time of day. It was first proposed by Ptolemy as a better kind of astrolabe. Several different variations of the instrument were later produced by medieval Muslim astronomers. Mural quadrants were important astronomical instruments in 18th-century European observatories, establishing a use for positional astronomy. Etymology The term ''quadrant'', meaning one fourth, refers to the fact that early versions of the instrument were derived from astrolabes. The quadrant condensed the workings of the astrolabe into an area one fourth the size of the astrolabe face; it was essentially a quarter of an astrolabe. History During Rigvedic times in ancient India, quadrants called 'Tureeyam's were used to measure the extent of a great solar eclipse. The use of a Tureeyam for observing a solar eclipse by Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Beijing Observatory 14
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500, ending with the expansion of Islam in late antiquity. The three-age system periodises ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vedic Period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred. The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with precision by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrated into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its center. Copernicus likely developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an List of ancient Greek astronomers, ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. The publication of Copernicus' model in his book ' (''On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres''), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous and multilingual region created within the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from lands regained from the Teutonic Order after the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466), Thirteen Years' War. A Poly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Nightingale (scholar)
Petrus de Dacia, also called Philomena and Peder Nattergal (Peter Nightingale), was a Danish scholar who lived in the 13th century. He worked mainly in Paris and Italy, writing in Latin. He published a calendar of new moon dates for the years 1292-1367. In 1292, he published a book on mathematics that contained a new method for the calculation of cubic roots. He also described a mechanical instrument to predict solar and lunar eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...s as seen from Paris. Editions *''Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi'' vol. X, ed. Fritz Saaby Pedersen. Copenhagen 1983.''Petri Philomeni de Dacia in Algorismum vulgarem Johannis de Sacrobosco commentarius'' edited by Maximilian Curtze, year 1897. This text by Petrus Philomena de Dacia is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Ben Machir Ibn Tibbon
Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon (; – ), also known as Prophatius, was a Jewish astronomer. He was a member of the Ibn Tibbon family. Biography He was probably born in Marseille in and died in Montpellier in . He was a grandson of Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon. His Provençal name was Don Profiat Tibbon; the Latin writers called him Profatius Judæus. Jacob occupies a considerable place in the history of astronomy in the Middle Ages. His works, translated into Latin, were quoted by Copernicus, Reinhold, and Clavius. He was also highly reputed as a physician, and, according to Jean Astruc ("Mémoires pour Servir à l'Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier," p. 168), Ibn Tibbon was regent of the faculty of medicine of Montpellier. In the controversy between the Maimonists and the anti-Maimonists, Jacob defended science against the attacks of Abba Mari and his party; the energetic attitude of the community of Montpellier on that occasion was due to his influence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Wisdom
The House of Wisdom ( ), also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, was believed to be a major Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid-era public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad. In popular reference, it acted as one of the world's largest public libraries during the Islamic Golden Age, and was founded either as a library for the collections of the fifth Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid () in the late 8th century or as a private collection of the second Abbasid caliph al-Mansur () to house rare books and collections in the Arabic language. During the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (), it was turned into a public academy and a library. ISBN 978-0521838245 It was destroyed in 1258 during the Siege of Baghdad (1258), Mongol siege of Baghdad. The primary sources behind the House of Wisdom narrative date between the late eight centuries and thirteenth centuries, and most importantly include the references in Ibn al-Nadim's (d. 995) ''al-Fihrist''. More recently, the nar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi , or simply al-Khwarizmi, was a mathematician active during the Islamic Golden Age, who produced Arabic-language works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820, he worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the contemporary capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate. One of the most prominent scholars of the period, his works were widely influential on later authors, both in the Islamic world and Europe. His popularizing treatise on algebra, compiled between 813 and 833 as ''Al-Jabr'' (''The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing''),Oaks, J. (2009), "Polynomials and Equations in Arabic Algebra", ''Archive for History of Exact Sciences'', 63(2), 169–203. presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. One of his achievements in algebra was his demonstration of how to solve quadratic equations by completing the square, for which he provided geometric justifications. Because al-Khwarizmi was t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sine Quadrant
image:Front of Quadrant.JPG, A sine quadrant, known in Arabic as A sine quadrant (), sometimes known as a "sinecal quadrant", was a type of Quadrant (instrument)#Geometric quadrant, quadrant used by medieval Astronomy in medieval Islam, Arabic astronomers. The Islamic astronomy#Instruments, instrument could be used to measure Celestial coordinate system, celestial angles, tell time, find directions, perform trigonometric computations, and determine the apparent positions of any celestial object for any time. The name is derived from the Arabic meaning 'a quarter' and meaning 'marked with sine'. The sine quadrant was described by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 9th-century Baghdad, and was used throughout the medieval Islamic period to determine the proper times for Salat, Islamic prayer.David A. King, "Islamic Astronomy", in Christopher Walker (1999), ed., Astronomy before the telescope, p. 167-168. British Museum Press. . These instruments, with poor angular resolution, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samarkand
Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. Samarkand is the capital of the Samarkand Region and a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlements Kimyogarlar, Farxod, Farhod and Xishrav, Khishrav. With 551,700 inhabitants (2021), it is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, third-largest city in Uzbekistan. There is evidence of human activity in the area of the city dating from the late Paleolithic Era. Though there is no direct evidence of when Samarkand was founded, several theories propose that it was founded between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Prospering from its location on the Silk Road between East Asia, China, Persia and Europe, at times Samarkand was one of the largest cities in Central Asia,Guidebook of history of Samarkand", and was an important city of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rey, Iran
Shahre Ray, Shahr-e Ray, Shahre Rey, or Shahr-e Rey (, ) or simply Ray or Rey (), is the capital of Rey County in Tehran Province, Iran. Formerly a distinct city, it has now been absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran as the 20th district of municipal Tehran, the capital city of the country. In historical sources also known as Rhages (), Rhagae, and Arsacia, Ray is the oldest existing city in Tehran Province. In the classical era, it was a prominent city belonging to Media, the political and cultural base of the Medes. Ancient Persian inscriptions and the Avesta ( Zoroastrian scriptures), among other sources, attest to the importance of ancient Ray. Ray is mentioned several times in the Apocrypha. It is also shown on the fourth-century Peutinger Map. The city was subject to severe destruction during the medieval invasions by the Arabs, Turks, and Mongols. Its position as a capital city was revived during the reigns of the Buyid Daylamites and the Seljuk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maragheh Observatory
The Maragheh observatory (Persian language, Persian: رصدخانه مراغه), also spelled Maragha, Maragah, Marageh, and Maraga, was an astronomical observatory established in the mid 13th century under the patronage of the Ilkhanid Hulagu and the directorship of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a Persian people, Persian scientist and astronomer. The observatory is located on the west side of Maragheh, which is situated in today's East Azerbaijan Province of Iran.Niri, J. S. (2017). Determine the function and design of architectural and astronomical ... Determine the Function and Design of Architectural and Astronomical Observatory Discovered in the Maragheh. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349064264_Determine_the_Function_and_Design_of_Architectural_and_Astronomical_Observatory_Discovered_in_the_Maragheh It was considered one of the most advanced scientific institutions in Eurasia because it was a center for many groundbreaking calculations in mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almagest
The ''Almagest'' ( ) is a 2nd-century Greek mathematics, mathematical and Greek astronomy, astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemy ( ) in Koine Greek. One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it canonized a geocentric model of the Universe that was accepted for more than 1,200 years from its origin in Hellenistic Roman-era Alexandria, Alexandria, in the medieval Byzantine and Islamic Golden Age, Islamic worlds, and in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance until Copernicus. It is also a key source of information about ancient Greek astronomy. Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in 147 or 148. Norman T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemy's models set out in the ''Canopic Inscription'' was earlier than the version in the ''Almagest''. Hence the ''Almagest'' could not have been completed before about 150, a quarter-century after Ptolemy began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
