Islamic Astronomical Tables: Mathematical Analysis and Historical Investigation

ISBN-13: 9781138382657 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 364 str.

BENNO VAN DALEN

Opis

This volume comprises nine articles on Islamic astronomy published since 1989 by Benno van Dalen. 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 The four articles in the second part provide extensive studies of materials in unpublished primary sources on Islamic astronomy that heavily depend on these methods.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.

Spis treści

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.

O autorze

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.