Medieval

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/

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Alchemy to Chemistry

Apothecary - 18th C

Arabic Numerals

Astrologer Physicians

Baconian Method