Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science

393 Pages·2012·2.36 MB·English

by  Jim Al-Khalili

JIM AL-KHALILI
Pathfinders
The Golden Age of Arabic Science

ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2010
Copyright © Jim Al-Khalili, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the
copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
ISBN: 978-0-14-196501-7
To Julie
He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found
again by others; and he who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a
leader, even though centuries pass before he is recognized as such.
Nathaniel Schmidt, Ibn Khaldūn
Contents

List of Figures
List of Plates
Preface
A Note on Names, Pronunciations, Spellings and Dates
A Note on the Term ‘Arabic Science’
1. A Dream of Aristotle
2. The Rise of Islam
3. Translation
4. The Lonely Alchemist
5. The House of Wisdom
6. Big Science
7. Numbers
8. Algebra
9. The Philosopher
10. The Medic
11. The Physicist
12. The Prince and the Pauper
13. Andalusia
14. The Marāgha Revolution
15. Decline and Renaissance
16. Science and Islam Today
Notes
Glossary of Scientists
Timeline: The Islamic World from Antiquity to the Beginning of
the Modern World
Index
List of Figures

Map 1. The Abbasid Caliphate at the beginning of the Ninth Century.
Map 2. The Middle East and Maghrib, towards the end of the
Eleventh Century.
Fig. 1. Schematic map of early Abbāsid Baghdad. Source: Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 9/1–2 (November
1966).
Fig. 2. Round City projected onto a map of modern Baghdad.
Fig. 3. An ancient Chinese method for proving Pythagoras’ theorem.
Fig. 4. The evolution of Hindu-Arabic numerals.
Fig. 5. The first use of a decimal point, in The Book of Chapters on
Hindu Arithmetic by al-Uqlīdisi.
Fig. 6. An example of a geometric problem requiring the solution of a
quadratic equation, taken from Euclid’s Elements (Book Two,
Proposition Eleven).
Fig. 7. Ibn Sahl’s diagram showing the law of refraction of light
(through a plano-convex lens) for the very first time. Source: Isis,