Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:08, 7 September 2016

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 4 months

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 4 months

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Mathematics High‑priority This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics High This article has been rated as High-priority on the project's priority scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Middle Ages Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle Ages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Middle Ages on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Middle AgesWikipedia:WikiProject Middle AgesTemplate:WikiProject Middle AgesMiddle Ages Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

To-do list for Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2022-09-17 There are no active tasks for this page

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination. Discussions: Discussion, Islamic mathematics → Mathematics in Medieval Muslim World, No consensus, 17 April 2007, Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam/Archive 1#Move to Islamic mathematics or Mathematics in Medieval Muslim World Discussion, Islamic mathematics → various titles. No consensus 16 March 2011 Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam/Archive 1#Proposed titles

Partially translated from french wikipedia fr:mathématiques arabesTranquil Pepere (talk) 11:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Biased article

95% of the so called islamic mathematicians were Persian. Their work had nothing to do with Islam nor arabs or their culture.

The west has come to know Persians as arabs due to lack of knowledge, and the arab nationalists prey on that. 82.209.153.239 (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

something you same to dont know is that arabs conquered iran and part of the arabs persian speakers are arabs descent you seem to be an idiot ! there is no persian who speak arabic,even moderner persian dont speak arabic so how can a persian could speak arabic ????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.180.177 (talk) 19:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Tranquil Pepere

Stop vandalism

I made an important contribution by translating the french wikipedia. What an horribilis discovery I made by seeing the history of the differents versions of wikipedia. It's a pure vandalism. Morris Kline has said about the mathematics made by Arabs and Hindus : It's not brillant. Open the book and you will see what exactly Kline think about it. Nicolas Bourbaki don't even talk about the Arabs in the chapter devoted to algebra. I am not a native. I am sure I have made errors or maybe blunders during the translation. But vandalism is not acceptable.Tranquil Pepere (talk) 13:39, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted the recent additions by Tranquil Pepere. Reverting questionable content is not vandalism. Issues with the content include grammatical problems that make some sections incomprehensible, spelling errors, and a question of neutral POV. Tranquil Pepere, I suggest you post your proposed changes here on the talk page first, and give other editors a chance to discuss them. I've left a note on your talk page about editing in general. Dialectric (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

It is not a questionable content. It is a translation from the french wikipedia. Grammatical problems can be modified directly on the main page. If a passage is incomprehensible, in this case, you can transfert it to the talking page in order to ameliorate it. The question of neutral point of view must be discussed quoting the phrases tou estimate to be not neutral. What I see, it's vandalism. Or may be worst, a disregarding manner to welcome a non native englishman.Sincerly yours.Tranquil Pepere (talk) 14:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Your changes are unacceptable. It is not the duty of other editors to wade through large masses of poorly written material to correct it; it is up to you to make it of sufficiently acceptable quality that they will be willing to let it stand. Even apart from the grammar, there are other problems with the material you have added, so please stop edit warring to keep it and describe the changes you wish to make, one by one, on this talk page.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:12, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I repeat I ask to stop vandalism or worst censorhip (my contributions are made using quotations from academics professors not John Doe)Tranquil Pepere (talk) 09:45, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm French myself, as Tranquil Pepere, and I totally disagree with him. My English is not good enough to make modifications directly on the page, I know and accept it, and it's not a matter of being unwelcoming to non native English speakers. If someone with a poor French grammar wants to make modifications directly on the page, I would understand that people ask him to make the modifications first on the talk page. It's a matter of wisdom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8D:FE80:B87D:6838:831A:31E4 (talk) 14:59, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Change of name : Arabic mathematics

One speak of Arabic mathematics, but it was Arabic in language primarily. Most of the scholars were Greeks, Christians, Persians and Jews.

1. Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume 1, p.191, Morris Kline, Oxford University Press, 1972

Most of the scholars speak about "Arabic mathematic". So a change is needed.Tranquil Pepere (talk) 09:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

You are mistaken. "Arabic mathematic" is not even correct English. It's a solecism which would not be used by any reputable scholar with a good command of the language. The term "Arabic mathematics" is commonly used, but the final "s" cannot be omitted. But in any case, the titling of English Misplaced Pages articles relating to intellectual developments in Islamic countries is controversial. Therefore, if you want to propose a change to the title of this article, you must follow the appropriate procedure.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:42, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Moving pages without consensus is not good. Having an revert edit war is worse. I've now added move protection to the page. If you want to start a move discussion please follow the procedure at WP:RM.

There have been previous discussion on the name of the page:

Talk:Mathematics_in_medieval_Islam/Archive_1#Move_to_Islamic_mathematics_or_Mathematics_in_Medieval_Muslim_World

--Salix (talk): 13:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Abuse of blockquote

The abuse of blockquote is not neutral. What interest is it to have commentaries such as "it's fantastic" or "an important contribution" or "it is not brillant". These are point of view. What is neutral is to say wich person made what and what was known before him. The rest is only glorification. And it is not allowed. Sincerely yours. Tranquil Pepere (talk) 12:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC) In his A History of Mathematics, Victor Katz says that:

A complete history of mathematics of medieval Islam cannot yet be written, since so many of these Arabic manuscripts lie unstudied... Still, the general outline... is known. In particular, Islamic mathematicians fully developed the decimal place-value number system to include decimal fractions, systematised the study of algebra and began to consider the relationship between algebra and geometry, studied and made advances on the major Greek geometrical treatises of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius, and made significant improvements in plane and spherical geometry.

An important role was played by the translation and study of Greek mathematics, which was the principal route of transmission of these texts to Western Europe. Smith notes that:

The world owes a great debt to Arab scholars for preserving and transmitting to posterity the classics of Greek mathematics... their work was chiefly that of transmission, although they developed considerable ingenuity in algebra and showed some genius in their work in trigonometry.

Adolph P. Yushkevich states regarding the role of Islamic mathematics:

The Islamic mathematicians exercised a prolific influence on the development of science in Europe, enriched as much by their own discoveries as those they had inherited by the Greeks, the Indians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, etc.

Morris Kline in his book "Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times" says :

Though the mathematical work of the Hindus and Arabs was not brilliant ...

:

1. Katz 1993. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKatz1993 (help)
2. Smith 1958, Vol. 1, Chapter VII.4. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSmith1958 (help)
3. Sertima, Ivan Van (1992), Golden age of the Moor, Volume 11, Transaction Publishers, p. 394, ISBN 1-56000-581-5
4. Mathematical Tought from Ancient to Modern Times, Vol.1, Morris Kline, Oxford University Press, 1972, page 197

Exemple of disinformation

Al-Biruni developed a new method using trigonometric calculations to compute earth's radius and circumference based on the angle between the horizontal line and true horizon from the peak of a mountain with known height.

This is an example of disinformation I have suppress. There is no interest to evoke the second person who have discovered something. And the manner it was introduced let us presume that Al-Burini has calculated for the first time the radius of the earth. He was the second one.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the circumference of the Earth and obtained 250,000 stadia}} (it is believed that a stadium was 157 meters). So the result of Erathostene is 24,662 miles

1. Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume 1, Morris Kline,p.161

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tranquil Pepere (talk • contribs)

There is no disinformation in the quoted passage about Al-Biruni's calculation of the Earth's radius. You have simply missed the point of it entirely, which is that Al-Biruni was the first person known to have calculated the Earth's radius using the method described. That method is completely different from the one used by Eratosthenes, and is potentially much less expensive to apply, in that it doesn't require one to carefully measure the distance between two points some 100 or more km apart (in fact, about 900km in Eratosthenes's case). As it happens, the method isn't very useful in practice because the effect of atmospheric refraction on the measurements is not accurately determinable, but that doesn't make it entirely uninteresting.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 17:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:NAME

As I already noted at Talk:Astronomy in medieval Islam, the page title is unfortunate because it includes improper use of the adjective "medieval" (which is rampant in popular usage and should be discouraged in more educated historical discussion). "Medieval" means "intermediate between classical antiquity and the Renaissance". Islamic astronomy is a perfectly sufficient title for this page, there is no need for inserting a problematic adjective, it's not like we need to distinguish the mathematics of "medieval Islam" from that of "ancient Islam" or that of "Renaissance Islam". What is the "medieval" period in Europe is actually the "Golden Age" in the Islamic world (the two stages of development being, of course, connected), but since the article does not and should not propose to go into this question, it will be enough to just cut out the misleading adjective. --dab (𒁳) 09:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@User:Dbachmann: While I personally agree "Islamic mathematics" would be the most appropriate name for this article, for among the reasons you mention, it has had the unfortunate effect of enticing hordes of uninformed editors to rename this article to various even more inappropriate titles. This name seems to be relatively uncontroversial and is derived from one of the better references on the subject (J. Lennart Berggren, Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam, 1986). Also see /Archive_1#Proposed_titles and other threads in that archive. —Ruud 17:36, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion required

There appears to be something of an edit-war in progress in this article. Could both sides please pause with the editing of the disputed passages, and discuss the situation here, civilly, stating clearly the case for both sides, with suitable sources, and we can arrive at a reasoned consensus by one means or another. Only then can we sensibly update the article. Thank you all in advance for your co-operation. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:08, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

• All unassessed articles
• C-Class mathematics articles
• High-priority mathematics articles
• C-Class Middle Ages articles
• Mid-importance Middle Ages articles
• C-Class history articles
• All WikiProject Middle Ages pages
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists