TARIKH-E ELM
Year:2011 | Volume:- | Issue:10|Papers Count:6

The mathematical treatises known as Tahrir al-mutawassitat, “Revision of the Middle books”, are a collection of Greek and Arabic treatises which were re-edited by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. This paper explores the nature of the editorial work Tusi did, showing that it is not a simple rendering of the original text butthat it involves major revisions and in fact original additions. For the first time, a collated version of Tusi’s revision on thetreatise on the measurement of the circle (by Archimedes) is provided. A translation of the Arabic text is put side by side with a rendition of the treatise as it was circulated before Tusi’s time. An in-depth analysis of the text elucidates the nature of Tusi’s contributions to the text. This article also provides modest corrections to earlier studies by W. R. Knorr and P. Luckey.

A letter authored by the well-known Italian nobleman and traveller Pietro della Valle, dated 1624, is probably the oldest existing Persian document in which modern astronomy, in particular the Tychonic model, is introduced and discussed in detail. It was written in the reign of the Safavid Shah Abbas I, less than a quarter of century after Tycho Brahe’s death. In part it was based on what his Italian friend, the Jesuit priest and mathematician Christophoro Borri had told him in Goa, which he translated and sent from there to his Iranian friend, the astronomer Zayn al-Din Lari. In this letter, which is edited here, della Valle describes the Tychonic model and explains why it should be preferred to Ptolemy’s system. He also reports on the latest European scientific achievements, for example, the invention of the telescope and the observation of Mercury’s satellites, mentioning Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo as being among Europe’s greatest astronomers and mathematicians. He concludes his letter by stating that the Tychonic model does not violate the Holy Scripture and divine revelation.

The pharmaceutical knowledge and the medical science are very old in Iran. During Sassanid era, people who studied medicine or pharmacy at Gondi-Shapour University, had permission to treat sick people. After interruption in the progress of medicine and pharmacy, during the Islamic civilization, these sciences were spread and became under control of the government. This research has presented the transition from the herbal grocery to the new pharmacy and the causes of government to control the pharmacist.

Real Mathematicians contribution to architecture creation has been a controversial issue of scientific and architectural studies in Islamic era. According to the related documents, with development of constructive activities and need to mathematics in the first centuries, mathematicians give architects and craftsmen advices in some mathematical problems. Mathematicians, supervision of some government buildings, became the mediators of applying more precious mathematics among those involved in architecture and handcrafts till 4th/10th century. Since 5th/11th century, the architects’ mathematical knowledge increased as well as their crucial role of them strengthens. It was the same time that mathematicians ‘role impressively decreased except in practical use of arithmetic in construction (hisab i abniya). This paper presents a descriptive model of mathematicians' role and their mathematical applications in the process of architectural development with regard to historical documents from 2th to 11th century. The model indicates that in the first centuries, mathematicians despite participating in the urban design and planning, water structures, hisab i abniya and use of astronomy in architecture, didn’t have any significant role in architectural design and creating geometric patterns during this era.

Physical explanation of the planets’ place in the heaven is one of the principal questions in the ancient astronomy which the authors of haya (cosmology) works tried to find an answer for it. Their opinion is in fact a compilation from Aristotle’s “fifth element” theory and Ptolemy’s “prisms” theory. Aristotle’s fifth element theory assumes that the substance of the heavens is different from the other four substances; i.e. Fire, Air, Water and Earth, and Aristotle named this substance fifth element. Moreover since emptiness doesn’t exist in the world it should be the fifth element that fills the heavens. This substance is the origin of the circular motion and its motion must be uniform but it doesn’t appear and the heavenly bodies have different motions in different periods. Because of this, we must accept the existence of several falaks (orbits) for the heavenly bodies. Ptolemy has discussed about the falaks place and their motions in his Planetary Hypotheses too. Muslim scientist’s attention to this subject in haya books shows their attempt to answer these questions. This article wants to survey the viewpoints of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Islamic philosophers and astronomers about the falaks of the heavenly bodies. Moreover we discuss the nature of the falaks and their motion in the heaven.

One of the fields of creation and practice expansion is an attempt to diversify and multiply melodic modules which can increase practical potentials in a musical system. The most fundamental element of a sonic- musical atmosphere (mode) is ambits of tone; in other words, it is a sequence of tones with specific frequency. Therefore, melodic modules combination depends on acoustical features and rules of intervals integration. This article tries to extract the kinds of tone modules and rules of their intervals combinations from its repertory, based on sonic reality of Dastgahi music and also study combination potential of these modules according to methods of old musical treatises. In addition, the article introduces all of the octave modules which are made in trichords, tetrachords, and pentachords and evaluates rate of acoustical consonance of modules based on contents of old treatises accordingly. This estimation can indicate that some of these combinations are not only relies on acoustical rules about consonance, but also depends on auditory taste in different musical cultures.