Medieval: January 2019

Golden Age of Islamic Science - sh >> .
Crafts - Medieval - Quill, Wheel, Potting, Weaponry - arch >> .

Precise details about the transmission of knowledge from one place to another are rarely determinable. For alchemy, however, historians have an exact date: February 11, 1144, when Robert of Chester—a noted 12th-century translator from England—recorded in his diary that he had just finished translating into Latin an Arabic book with the English title "The Book of the Composition of Alchemy".

Robert of Chester notes in his introduction to the book on alchemy that this was a new science in the West. As such, he was also responsible for the introduction of numerous Arabic words into Latin—words without any earlier Latin equivalent—and, from there, into English and other European languages. Among the most obvious is the word “alchemy” itself.

Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most influential scientists in history, spent far more time working on and writing about alchemical experiments than he did on physics or optics, subjects for which he’s far better known.

After reading Newton’s 17th- and 18th-century writings on alchemy, 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes offered the opinion that “Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians.”

During Newton’s lifetime, fraudsters and successful attempts to defraud wealthy investors led to the banning of certain alchemical practices. The British Parliament was sufficiently worried about the potential devaluation of gold that unsanctioned alchemy could be punished by public hanging.

After 1720, a more rigid distinction between alchemy and chemistry was drawn. Within a few decades, the word “alchemy” came to refer only to the attempt to make gold from base metals. From that point forward, alchemists were seen as charlatans or fools.

The Dawn of Chemical Warfare > .
How Dangerous Are Chemical Weapons? > .

Apothecary - 18th C

Apothecary - Medicine in the 1700s - Towns > .

Spanish Military Hospital 1784 - Towns > .

Arabic Numerals

Why does the West use Arabic Numerals? - HiMa > .
● 976. The first Arabic numerals in Europe appeared in the Codex Vigilanus in the year 976.
● 1202. Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician who had studied in Béjaïa (Bougie), Algeria, promoted the Arabic numeral system in Europe with his book Liber Abaci, which was published in 1202.
● 1482. The system did not come into wide use in Europe, however, until the invention of printing. (See, for example, the 1482 Ptolemaeus map of the world printed by Lienhart Holle in Ulm, and other examples in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany.)
● 1549. These are correct format and sequence of the "modern numbers" in titlepage of the Libro Intitulado Arithmetica Practica by Juan de Yciar, the Basque calligrapher and mathematician, Zaragoza 1549.

In 825 Al-Khwārizmī wrote a treatise in Arabic, On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which survives only as the 12th-century Latin translation, Algoritmi de numero Indorum. Algoritmi, the translator's rendition of the author's name, gave rise to the word algorithm.

The first mentions of the numerals in the West are found in the Codex Vigilanus of 976.

From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac (later, Pope Sylvester II) used his position to spread knowledge of the numerals in Europe. Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his youth. He was known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning the astrolabe from Lupitus of Barcelona after he had returned to France.

Leonardo Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), a mathematician born in the Republic of Pisa who had studied in Béjaïa (Bougie), Algeria, promoted the Indian numeral system in Europe with his 1202 book Liber Abaci:

""When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it.""

The numerals are arranged with their lowest value digit to the right, with higher value positions added to the left. This arrangement was adopted identically into the numerals as used in Europe. Languages written in the Latin alphabet run from left-to-right, unlike languages written in the Arabic alphabet. Hence, from the point of view of the reader, numerals in Western texts are written with the highest power of the base first whereas numerals in Arabic texts are written with the lowest power of the base first.

The reason the digits are more commonly known as "Arabic numerals" in Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabic-speakers of North Africa, who were then using the digits from Libya to Morocco. Arabs, on the other hand, call the system "Hindu numerals", referring to their origin in India. This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the "Hindi numerals", namely the Eastern Arabic numerals (٠‬ - ١‬ - ٢‬ - ٣‬ -٤‬ - ٥‬ - ٦‬ - ٧‬ - ٨‬ - ٩‬) used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages (e.g. Devanagari: ०.१.२.३.४.५.६.७.८.९).

The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became widely known during the 15th century. Early evidence of their use in Britain includes: an equal hour horary quadrant from 1396, in England, a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex; a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire; and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset; and in Scotland a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral. (See G.F. Hill, The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe for more examples.) In central Europe, the King of Hungary Ladislaus the Posthumous, started the use of Arabic numerals, which appear for the first time in a royal document of 1456. By the mid-16th century, they were in common use in most of Europe. Roman numerals remained in use mostly for the notation of Anno Domini years, and for numbers on clockfaces.

Today, Roman numerals are still used for enumeration of lists (as an alternative to alphabetical enumeration), for sequential volumes, to differentiate monarchs or family members with the same first names, and (in lower case) to number pages in prefatory material in books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals#Adoption_in_Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system
http://www.italiamedievale.org/portale/numerazione-araba-in-europa/?lang=en
http://www.accountingin.com/accounting-historians-journal/volume-19-number-2/the-introduction-of-arabic-numerals-in-european-accounting/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vigilanus

Astrologer Physicians

Magic and Medicine: The casebooks of history’s most notorious astrologer doctors > .

Apothecaries, barber surgeons, pharmacists, physicians - DrKn >> .
Alchemy to Chemistry - DrKn >> .

De humani corporis fabrica - DrKn >> .
Medical History - Corp >> .

Baconian Method

Science has outgrown the human mind and its limited capacities .

"Can scientific discovery really be automated?

I believe it can, using an approach that we have known about for centuries. The answer to this question can be found in the work of Sir Francis Bacon, the 17th-century English philosopher and a key progenitor of modern science.

The first reiterations of the scientific method can be traced back many centuries earlier to Muslim thinkers such as Ibn al-Haytham, who emphasised both empiricism and experimentation. However, it was Bacon who first formalised the scientific method and made it a subject of study. In his book Novum Organum (1620), he proposed a model for discovery that is still known as the Baconian method. He argued against syllogistic logic for scientific synthesis, which he considered to be unreliable. Instead, he proposed an approach in which relevant observations about a specific phenomenon are systematically collected, tabulated and objectively analysed using inductive logic to generate generalisable ideas. In his view, truth could be uncovered only when the mind is free from incomplete (and hence false) axioms.

The Baconian method attempted to remove logical bias from the process of observation and conceptualisation, by delineating the steps of scientific synthesis and optimising each one separately. Bacon’s vision was to leverage a community of observers to collect vast amounts of information about nature and tabulate it into a central record accessible to inductive analysis. In Novum Organum, he wrote: ‘Empiricists are like ants; they accumulate and use. Rationalists spin webs like spiders. The best method is that of the bee; it is somewhere in between, taking existing material and using it.’

The Baconian method is rarely used today. It proved too laborious and extravagantly expensive; its technological applications were unclear. However, at the time the formalisation of a scientific method marked a revolutionary advance. Before it, science was metaphysical, accessible only to a few learned men, mostly of noble birth. By rejecting the authority of the ancient Greeks and delineating the steps of discovery, Bacon created a blueprint that would allow anyone, regardless of background, to become a scientist.

Bacon’s insights also revealed an important hidden truth: the discovery process is inherently algorithmic. It is the outcome of a finite number of steps that are repeated until a meaningful result is uncovered. Bacon explicitly used the word ‘machine’ in describing his method. His scientific algorithm has three essential components: first, observations have to be collected and integrated into the total corpus of knowledge. Second, the new observations are used to generate new hypotheses. Third, the hypotheses are tested through carefully designed experiments.

If science is algorithmic, then it must have the potential for automation. This futuristic dream has eluded information and computer scientists for decades, in large part because the three main steps of scientific discovery occupy different planes. Observation is sensual; hypothesis-generation is mental; and experimentation is mechanical. Automating the scientific process will require the effective incorporation of machines in each step, and in all three feeding into each other without friction. Nobody has yet figured out how to do that."

Rise of Modern Science:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/birth-modern-science/

Baconian Science

Baconian Method ..Galileo, Bacon, Descartes ..

Rise of Modern Science:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/birth-modern-science/

Debunking myths about middle ages

Myths about the Middle Ages that are so very, very wrong! > .

Enlightenment

Why the Enlightenment was not the age of reason .

"The Enlightenment began with the scientific revolution in the mid-17th century, and culminated in the French Revolution at the end of the 18th. Hegel, in the early 1800s, was one of the first to go on the offensive. He said that the rational subject conceived by Immanuel Kant – the Enlightenment philosopher par excellence – produced citizens who were alienated, dispassionate and estranged from nature, with the murderous rationalism of the French Terror the logical outcome.

However, the Enlightenment was a diverse phenomenon; most of its philosophy stood far apart from Kantianism, let alone from Hegel’s version of Kant. The truth is that Hegel and the 19th-century Romantics, who believed they were moved by a new spirit of beauty and feeling, summoned up the ‘age of reason’ to serve as a foil for their own self-conception. Their Kantian subject was a straw man, as was the dogmatic rationalism of their Enlightenment.

In France, the philosophes were surprisingly enthusiastic about the passions, and deeply suspicious about abstractions. Rather than holding that reason was the only means of battling error and ignorance, the French Enlightenment emphasised sensation. Many Enlightenment thinkers advocated a polyvocal and playful version of rationality, one that was continuous with the particularities of sensation, imagination and embodiment. Against the inwardness of speculative philosophy – René Descartes and his followers were often the target of choice – the philosophes turned outward, and brought to the fore the body as the point of passionate engagement with the world. You might even go so far as to say that the French Enlightenment tried to produce a philosophy without reason."

.......

"Generalising about intellectual movements is always a dangerous business. The Enlightenment did have distinct national characteristics, and even within a single nation it was not monolithic. Some thinkers did invoke a strict dichotomy of reason and the passions, and privilege the a priori over sensation – Kant, most famously. But in this respect Kant was isolated from many, if not most, of his era’s major themes. Particularly in France, rationality was not opposed to sensibility but was predicated on and continuous with it. Romanticism was largely a continuation of Enlightenment themes, not a break or rupture from them.

If we are to heal the divides of the contemporary historical moment, we should give away the fiction that reason alone has ever held the day. The present warrants criticism, but it will do no good if it’s based on a myth about some glorious, dispassionate past that never was."

And humanity will not be truly enlightened (unlikely) until supernaturalist myths are universally discarded.

Literacy and Education in the Enlightenment > .

Advancements in medicine, algebra and astronomy; influential figures like Avicenna and Averroes: these asides in the traditional story of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance only gloss the surface of one of the most important periods of world history.

This crucial 500-year history was headquartered in Baghdad but impacted the wider world. The philosophers, scientists, inventors, and poets of the Abbasid Empire paved the way for the Renaissance and continue to affect our world, and The History and Achievements of the Islamic Golden Age will forever change your perspective on world history.

The Abbasid Empire, which ruled the Middle East as well as much of Northern Africa and Central Asia in much of the Middle Ages, is a bridge between the ancient and modern worlds. The Abbasid Empire was an international, multicultural hub of trade, travel, education, art, science, and much more. Just a few of the many events and achievements of the era include: Advancements in mathematics, including the birth of algebra and new insights into geometry and trigonometry.

The Abbasid Empire also saw the origins of the scientific method, along with the development of chemistry, physics, and astronomy as discrete fields of inquiry. The Islamic Golden Age contributed to the invention of the modern “teaching hospital” and a medical encyclopedia that served Europe for the next 600 years.

Development of ontological philosophy served future Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians concerned with theology and the relationship between faith and reason. The epicenter of the age was Baghdad and its House of Wisdom, the world’s preeminent center for learning, translation, and original research at the time. Thanks to the House of Wisdom, scholars, scientists, artists, and thinkers flourished.

The Abbasid Empire was a highly educated, highly mobile society, and made their way around the empire, from the Mediterranean to Central Asia.

Islamic Science

Rise and decline of science in Islam > .
Aristotle: Ἀριστοτέλης ..
Mathematics: The Early Islamic World | BBC In Our Time > .
The Medieval Islamicate World: Crash Course History of Science #7 > .

History of Science - CrashCourse >> .
Islamic Civilization - What the Ancients Did for Us > .
Science and Islam, Jim Al-Khalili - BBC > .
Islamic Golden Age and The House of Wisdom - Invi > .

Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities - K&G > .

Forging Islamic science: Fake miniatures depicting Islamic science have found their way into the most august of libraries and history books. How?

al-Biruni > .
Al-Biruni is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist and linguist.

al-Ghazali > .

Al-Ghazali full name Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī; latinized Algazelus or Algazel, c. 1058 – 19 December 1111) was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. He was of Persian origin.
Al-Haytham was one of the first scientists to insist on proving theories through experimentation. He was also the first to systematically introduce the control element that is fundamental in modern scientific inquiry. The control, also known as the scientific constant, is the element in an experiment that remains the same—against which the state of changes in other parts of the experiment are thus measured.
al-Kindi > .
Al-Kindi Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī ; Latin: Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers, and is unanimously hailed as the "father of Arab philosophy" for his synthesis, adaptation and promotion of Greek and Hellenistic philosophy in the Muslim world.

Al-Khwarizmi: The translation of Al-Khwarizmi's work greatly influenced mathematics in Europe.

Al-Razi was an early proponent of experimental medicine and the ceaseless pursuit of new medicines. His interest in alchemy was a search not only for the philosopher’s stone—the imaginary element that supposedly made possible the conversion of base metals, like lead, into precious metals, like silver and gold—but also for more effective medicines. To al-Razi, both of these were serious, scientific pursuits, not magic.
Averroes > .
Avicenna > .
Ibn Khaldun > .
Ibn Khaldun (Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406) was a fourteenth-century Arab historiographer and historian. He is widely considered to be a forerunner of the modern disciplines of historiography, sociology, economics, and demography.

Jabir : Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan was born in the Persian city of Tus in approximately 720, and is best known for his book, the Muqaddimah or Prolegomena ("Introduction"). The book influenced 17th-century Ottoman historians ... who used the theories in the book to analyze the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire. 19th-century European scholars also acknowledged the significance of Jabir's work and considered Ibn Khaldun as one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages.

One of Jabir’s most famous works is an Arabic version of The Emerald Stone. Originally regarded as a Greek text, it is now accepted as an Arabic original written, if not by Jabir, then perhaps by a near predecessor from the 7th or 8th centuries.

The Emerald Stone was first translated into Latin in the 12th century, becoming one of the foundational texts of alchemy and other magical pursuits in medieval and premodern Europe. Jabir’s use of strange and deliberately mysterious language in the text is a strong contender for the origin of the English word “gibberish,” meaning something nonsensical.

Many of Jabir’s alchemical studies were dedicated to pursuing the possibility of takwin, the artificial creation of life. ... According to Jabir, the animals would then be at the disposal of the alchemist who created them.

Jabir recognized the central importance of experimentation, writing, “The first essential in chemistry is that one must perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who does not perform practical work, or does not conduct experiments will never attain any degree of mastery.”

Pursuing Aristotle’s theory of the elements—which held that everything consists of some combination of earth, air, fire, and water—Jabir reasoned that by mixing elements one could create new elements. His work initially led him to classify the elements around him into metals and nonmetals. From there, he subdivided these into three categories: spirits that produced vapor when heated; metals; and nonmalleable substances, or stones.

In addition to discovering sulfuric and nitric acids, Jabir was the first scientist to offer descriptions of citric, acetic, and tartaric acids. He also detailed now-basic scientific processes such as distillation and crystallization. His pioneering work further included extensive experimentation with, and description of, basic chemical components such as arsenic, antimony, sulfur, and mercury.
.....
Al-Razi advanced the work started by Jabir of categorizing and classifying observable and verifiable facts about chemical substances (including their reaction under experimentation), along with the apparatus used in this process. He developed a 116 The History and Achievements of the Islamic Golden Age classification of minerals into six groups: spirits, bodies, stones, vitriols, borates, and salts.

Al-Kindi is credited with being the first man of science to distill alcohol. His book The Alchemy of Perfume and Distillation describes how to use his Alkindus distiller and contains recipes for more than 100 perfumes. Al-Kindi’s experiments saw him deriving spirits through the distillation of wine, thereby creating an early form of brandy.

Jabir, al-Razi, and al-Kindi all pursued some degree of scientific experimentation in pursuit of knowledge. However, historians of science and of the Islamic Golden Age often bestow the laurels for developing the scientific method on a man named Abu Ali Hassan ibn al-Haytham (known in Europe as Alhazen).

Jabir, al-Razi, and al-Kindi all pursued some degree of scientific experimentation in pursuit of knowledge.

Maimonides > .

Maimonides & Averroes & Aristotle > .

Mathematics | BBC In Our Time: The Early Islamic World > .
Babylonian mathematics .
Islamic mathematics .
Mathematics in medieval Islam .

War of the Worlds - The story of rise of the modern world >> .

Islamic vs Christian Science

Islamic Golden Age and The House of Wisdom - Invi > .
Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities - K&G > .

Islamic Science
https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2016/04/23/healing-in-islamic-science-and-medicine

Conservative traditions = retardation
https://www.scidev.net/global/education/analysis-blog/in-perspective-what-really-holds-back-islamic-science.html
myth?
http://indiafacts.org/the-myth-of-islamic-science/

Christian Church attitude to illness: Blame the victim & peddle fakery: Religion & contra-rational regression

The ascendancy of the Christian Church dates from around the time of the death of Galen. Having progressed so far, rational medicine was now abandoned. Medicine in the Bible is entirely supernatural. The Church developed the view that real practical medicine savoured of black magic. In any case it was wrong to try to subvert God's holy will by interfering with the natural course of events. It was God who caused illness. He was responsible for cures just as he was responsible for death. Even church law mentioned, in passing, that diseases were attributable to God, for example

If, by divine judgment, leprosy happens to a husband or wife, and the sick one demands the carnal debt from the one who is healthy, what is demanded must be rendered in accord with the Apostle's general commandment [1 Cor. 7:3-4], which gives no exception for this case.
(Decretals of Pope Gregory IX , Book Four, Title VIII C2)

Illness was indisputably caused by sin. The Bible said so, and so did Church Councils. The only alternative explanations given credence were diabolical possession, witchcraft and other satanic machinations. In Christendom, from AD 300 to around 1700 all serious mental conditions were understood as symptoms of demonic possession. Since illness was thought to be caused by supernatural agents, cures had to be essentially supernatural as well. Every cure was literally miraculous, and these miracles could be effected only by prayer, penance and the assistance of saints. To claim otherwise was heretical and blasphemous.

The Christian ideal was that women should die rather than allow themselves to be helped by a physician. Some women won their sainthood for doing no more than declining medical assistance. In the fourth century Saint Gorgonia, the daughter of two saints, was trampled by a team of mules, causing multiple broken bones and crushed internal organs. She would not see a doctor, as she thought it indecent. According to Christian sources this modesty miraculously cured her, and a second such self-healing miracle assured her sainthood. Today, Gorgonia is a patron saint for people afflicted by bodily ills. We do not know how many thousands of other women with identically modest Christian scruples died following her example and are now forgotten.
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gg0_medicine.htm

Hagiography: Sickness, Disability, Psychosomatic Cures, and Placebo
http://www.medievalists.net/2018/02/sickness-disability-miracle-cures-hagiography-england-c-700-c-1200/

file:///C:/Users/Gillian/Downloads/Thouroude%20Redacted%20Thesis%20(3).pdf

Christianity and Medicine - Bad News About Christianity

Religion & Contra-rational Regression: Abortifacients, Pregnancy, Childbirth

The ascendancy of the Christian Church dates from around the time of the death of Galen. Having progressed so far, rational medicine was now abandoned. Medicine in the Bible is entirely supernatural. The Church developed the view that real practical medicine savoured of black magic. In any case it was wrong to try to subvert God's holy will by interfering with the natural course of events. It was God who caused illness. He was responsible for cures just as he was responsible for death. Even church law mentioned, in passing, that diseases were attributable to God, for example

If, by divine judgment, leprosy happens to a husband or wife, and the sick one demands the carnal debt from the one who is healthy, what is demanded must be rendered in accord with the Apostle's general commandment [1 Cor. 7:3-4], which gives no exception for this case.

(Decretals of Pope Gregory IX , Book Four, Title VIII C2)

Illness was indisputably caused by sin. The Bible said so, and so did Church Councils. The only alternative explanations given credence were diabolical possession, witchcraft and other satanic machinations. In Christendom, from AD 300 to around 1700 all serious mental conditions were understood as symptoms of demonic possession. Since illness was thought to be caused by supernatural agents, cures had to be essentially supernatural as well. Every cure was literally miraculous, and these miracles could be effected only by prayer, penance and the assistance of saints. To claim otherwise was heretical and blasphemous.

The Christian ideal was that women should die rather than allow themselves to be helped by a physician. Some women won their sainthood for doing no more than declining medical assistance. In the fourth century Saint Gorgonia, the daughter of two saints, was trampled by a team of mules, causing multiple broken bones and crushed internal organs. She would not see a doctor, as she thought it indecent. According to Christian sources this modesty miraculously cured her, and a second such self-healing miracle assured her sainthood. Today, Gorgonia is a patron saint for people afflicted by bodily ills. We do not know how many thousands of other women with identically modest Christian scruples died following her example and are now forgotten.

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gg0_medicine.htm .
Church attitude to illness

Sickness, Disability, Psychosomatic Cures, and Placebo
http://www.medievalists.net/2018/02/sickness-disability-miracle-cures-hagiography-england-c-700-c-1200/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwifery_in_the_Middle_Ages

Medieval advice to pregnant mothers: don’t drink water, have wine instead
http://www.medievalists.net/2011/06/medieval-advice-to-pregnant-mothers-dont-drink-water-have-wine-instead/

Childbirth in Medieval and Tudor Times
https://www.tudorsociety.com/childbirth-in-medieval-and-tudor-times-by-sarah-bryson/

Medieval Births and Birthing
https://rosaliegilbert.com/births.html

Birth Control and Abortion in the Middle Ages
http://www.medievalists.net/2013/12/birth-control-and-abortion-in-the-middle-ages/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortifacient
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_contraception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_birth_control

Birth, Marriage, Children, Life, Death
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/ZhhfkFeRian
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/ZhhfkFeRian

Pre-Modern Death in Childbirth
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/XMUoZ4ouWqT

Helen Castor - Missals & Medieval Marriage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecrajqIAwaE

Helen Castor - Church Courts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPZAHEMUGhc

playlists
Medieval Lives Birth, Marriage, Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4mx8BBF44M&list=PLDJIWiwfNABlJMU0LDmB_m4JORMnJnS4L

Medieval Life - Birth, Children, Marriage, Death - Tony
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtakTnKQQMCzgnwhkhJrO5NE2mTuE8eN4

Medieval Lives Birth, Marriage, Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4mx8BBF44M&list=PLDJIWiwfNABlJMU0LDmB_m4JORMnJnS4L

Society: Children, Women, Birth, Marriage, Death, Dance ; Medieval to Modern - archanth
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrYzzr8yja6EXGbIsrT_V07Mvj-PZGtRt

Women, Medieval to 19th C: She Wolves, Harlots, Whores, Heroines, Queens, Scandalous - archanth
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrYzzr8yja6FbLdIk0yyO6G8MUiJSJzS7 .

Christianity and Medicine - Bad News About Christianity

Science in Islam, Part 1: Mu'tazila free will - CaRe > .
Science in a Golden Age - Al-Khwarizmi: The Father of Algebra - CaRe > .

Science in Islam - CaRe >> .
Golden Age of Islamic Science - SuHo >> .
Islamic Science - tb >> .

https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/show/the_history_and_achievements_of_the_islamic_golden_age?tn=The+Great+Courses+Plus+Online+History+Courses+_0_14

Healing in Islamic science and medicine

Mathematics - 1519 to 2019

500 Years of Mathematics: Are We Living In A New Golden Age? > .

Natural Philosophy

Slow emergence from superstitious ignorance

Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) was the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural science. / Natural philosophy, as distinguished from metaphysics and mathematics, is traditionally understood to encompass a wide range of subjects which Aristotle included in the physical sciences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natphil-ren/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-natphil/

Natural philosophy - Wikipedia

Natural Products - Isolation

Isolation of Natural Products: Morphine and Other Alkaloids - Prof D > .

The History of Drugs - Prof D >> .

Newton's Pi

Ridiculous Way We Used To Calculate Pi - Veri > .

For thousands of years, mathematicians were calculating Pi the obvious but numerically inefficient way. Then Newton came along and changed the game.

Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus.

In Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity. He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's inference that the Earth is an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.

Newton's work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied." His work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newton's mathematical papers. The author of the manuscript De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas, sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669, was identified by Barrow in a letter sent to Collins in August of that year as "[...] of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things."

Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of calculus (the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy). Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed calculus independently, although with very different mathematical notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognised as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.[citation needed]

His work extensively uses calculus in geometric form based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishingly small quantities: in Principia itself, Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of "the method of first and last ratios" and explained why he put his expositions in this form, remarking also that "hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles."

Because of this, the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times and in Newton's time "nearly all of it is of this calculus." His use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in his De motu corporum in gyrum of 1684 and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684".

Newton is generally credited with the generalised binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula) and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. Newton's work on infinite series was inspired by Simon Stevin's decimals.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a sophisticated theory of colour based on the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. His work on light was collected in his highly influential book Opticks, published in 1704. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.

Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian who privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England. Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. Politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, as well as president of the Royal Society (1703–1727).

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