A
List of Fixed Stars
15th Century
al-Kindi
A
page from an Arabic translation
Ptolemy's Almagest A.D. 1294
al-Battani
Astronomical
Handbook
16th Century
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Physics
The Holy Quran had awakened a spirit of enquiry among the Arabs which was instrumental in their splendid achievements in the field of science, and according to a western critic led them to realise that "science could not be advanced by mere speculation; its only sure progress lay in the practical interrogation of nature. The essential characteristics of their method are experiment and observation.
The Muslims developed physics to a high degree and produced such eminent physicists as Kindi, al-Beruni, and Ar-Razi.
Abu Yusuf Ibn Ishaq, known as al-Kindi was born at Kufa in themiddle of the 9th century and flourished in Baghdad. He is the most dominating and one of the greatest Muslim scholars of physics.
He applied mathematics not only to physics, but also to medicine. He was therefore regarded by Cardon, a philosopher of the Renaissance, "as one of the 12 subtlest minds." He thought that gold and silver could only be obtained from mines and not through any other process. He endeavored to ascertain the laws that govern the fall of bodies.
Razi investigated on the determination of specific gravity of means of hydrostatic balance, called by him Mizan-al-Tabii. Most of his works on physics, mathematics, astronomy and optics have perished. In physics his writings deal with matter, space, time and motion. In his opinion matter in the primitive state before the creation of the world was composed of scattered atoms, which possessed extent. Mixed in various proportions with the articles of void, these atoms produced these elements which are five ih number namely earth, air, water, fire and celestial element. Fire is created by striking iron on the stone.
al-Biruni
Abu Rehan Beruni, was a versatile genius, who adorned the durbar of Mahmud of Ghazni. His outstanding achievement in the realm of physics was the accurate determination of the weight of 18 stones. He also discovered that light travels faster than sound. He has also contributed immensely to geological knowledge by providing the correct explanation of the formation of natural spring and artesian wells.
He suggested that the Indus valley was formerly an ancient basin filled with alluvial soil. His Kitab al Jawahir deals with different types of gems and their specific gravity. A voluminous unedited lapidary by Betuni is kept in manuscript form in the Escorial Library. It deals.with a large number of stones and metals from the natural, commercial and medical point of view.
What
is Taught: In the 17th century, the
pendulum was developed by Galileo during his teenage
years. He noticed a chandelier swaying as it was
being blown by the wind. As a result, he went
home and invented the pendulum.
Pendulum
What
Should be Taught: The pendulum was
discovered by Ibn Yunus al-Masri during the 10th
century, who was the first to study and document
its oscillatory motion. Its value for use in clocks
was introduced by Muslim physicists during the
15th century.
What
is Taught: Galileo (17th century) was
the world's first great experimenter.
What
Should be Taught: Al-Biruni (d. 1050)
was the world's first great experimenter. He wrote
over 200 books, many of which discuss his precise
experiments.
His
literary output in the sciences amounts to some
13,000 pages, far exceeding that written by Galileo
or, for that matter, Galileo and Newton combined.
al-Haytham
Using
math in physics and astronomy, Ibn Al-Haytham
wrote treaties on the light of the Moon, in which
he argues that the moon shines like a self luminous
object, though its light is borrowed from the
Sun.
He
wrote on the Halo and Rainbow, on Spherical Burning
Mirrors, on Paraboloidal Burning Mirrors, and
on the Shape of an eclipse, which examines the
camera obscura phenomena.
Camera
Obscura
Karmal al-Din al-Farisi
Istanbul, Fourteenth Century
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