Islamic Astronomical Tables

Mathematical Analysis and Historical Investigation

Benno van Dalen (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

364 Seiten

2019
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-138-38265-7 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

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 The four articles in the second part provide extensive studies of materials in unpublished primary sources on Islamic astronomy that heavily depend on these methods.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.

Benno van Dalen was for long a researcher at the former Institute for the History of Science in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and is now one of the two research leaders of the 25-year project 'Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus' at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich, Germany.

Contents: Preface; Part 1 Methods for Analysing Astronomical Tables: A statistical method for recovering unknown parameters from medieval astronomical tables; On Ptolemy’s table for the equation of time; A table for the true solar longitude in the Jami’ Zij; Al-Khwarizmi’s astronomical tables revisited: analysis of the equation of time; Origin of the mean motion tables of Jai Singh. Part 2 Studies of Zijes: The Zij-i Nasiri by Mahmud ibn ‘Umar. The earliest Indian-Islamic astronomical handbook with tables and its relation the Ala i Zij; A second manuscript of the Mumtahan Zij; Re-editing the tables in the Sabi’ Zij by al-Battani (ca. AD 900) (with Fritz S. Pedersen); Dates and eras in the Islamic world: era chronology in astronomical handbooks; Indexes.

Erscheinungsdatum	21.03.2020
Reihe/Serie	Variorum Collected Studies
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	149 x 224 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik
ISBN-10	1-138-38265-5 / 1138382655
ISBN-13	978-1-138-38265-7 / 9781138382657
Zustand	Neuware