Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Popular Genres

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World

Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World

John Freely
3.6/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and many others. John Freely explains how, as the Dark Ages shrouded Europe, scholars in medieval Baghdad translated the works of these Greek thinkers into Arabic, spreading their ideas throughout the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain, with many Muslim scientists, most notably Avicenna, Alhazen, and Averroës, adding their own interpretations to the philosophy and science they had inherited. Freely goes on to show how, beginning in the twelfth century, these texts by Islamic scholars were then translated from Arabic into Latin, sparking the emergence of modern science at the dawn of the Renaissance, which climaxed in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.

Here is early science in all its glory, from Pythagorean “celestial harmony” to the sun-centered planetary theory of Copernicus, who, in 1543, aided by the mathematical methods of medieval Arabic astronomers, revived a concept proposed by the Greek astronomer Aristarchus some eighteen centuries before. When Newton laid the foundations of modern science, building on the work of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and others, he said that he was “standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants,” referring to his predecessors in ancient Greece and in the Arabic and Latin worlds from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance.

Caliph Harun al-Rashid was one of the Muslim rulers who first promoted translating Greek texts into Arabic. His Baghdad is the setting for The Thousand and One Nights, in which Scheherazades’s “Tale of Aladdin and His Magic Lamp” reflects the marvels of the new science and the amazing inventions it was said to produce. John Freely’s Aladdin’s Lamp returns us to that time and brings to light an essential and long-overlooked chapter in the history of science.
Language
English
Pages
303
Format
Hardcover
Publisher
Knopf
Release
February 17, 2009
ISBN
030726534X
ISBN 13
9780307265340

Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World

John Freely
3.6/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and many others. John Freely explains how, as the Dark Ages shrouded Europe, scholars in medieval Baghdad translated the works of these Greek thinkers into Arabic, spreading their ideas throughout the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain, with many Muslim scientists, most notably Avicenna, Alhazen, and Averroës, adding their own interpretations to the philosophy and science they had inherited. Freely goes on to show how, beginning in the twelfth century, these texts by Islamic scholars were then translated from Arabic into Latin, sparking the emergence of modern science at the dawn of the Renaissance, which climaxed in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.

Here is early science in all its glory, from Pythagorean “celestial harmony” to the sun-centered planetary theory of Copernicus, who, in 1543, aided by the mathematical methods of medieval Arabic astronomers, revived a concept proposed by the Greek astronomer Aristarchus some eighteen centuries before. When Newton laid the foundations of modern science, building on the work of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and others, he said that he was “standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants,” referring to his predecessors in ancient Greece and in the Arabic and Latin worlds from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance.

Caliph Harun al-Rashid was one of the Muslim rulers who first promoted translating Greek texts into Arabic. His Baghdad is the setting for The Thousand and One Nights, in which Scheherazades’s “Tale of Aladdin and His Magic Lamp” reflects the marvels of the new science and the amazing inventions it was said to produce. John Freely’s Aladdin’s Lamp returns us to that time and brings to light an essential and long-overlooked chapter in the history of science.
Language
English
Pages
303
Format
Hardcover
Publisher
Knopf
Release
February 17, 2009
ISBN
030726534X
ISBN 13
9780307265340

More books from John Freely

Istanbul: The Imperial City

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II-Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Galata, Pera, Beyoğlu: Bir Biyografi

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Lost Messiah: In Search of the Mystical Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Evliya Çelebi'nin İstanbulu

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Jem Sultan: The Adventures of a Captive Turkish Prince in Renaissance Europe

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in the Middle Ages

3/5 ( ratings)

Light From the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World

4/5 ( ratings)

The Western Shores of Turkey: Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Stamboul Ghosts: A Stroll Through Bohemian Istanbul

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Byzantine Monuments Of Istanbul

4.7/5 ( ratings)

A Traveller's Guide to Homer: A Journey across Turkey in the Footsteps of Odysseus

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Strolling through Venice: The Definitive Walking Guidebook to 'La Serenissima'

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Stamboul Sketches: Encounters in Old Istanbul

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Istanbul: City of Two Continents

3.5/5 ( ratings)

La llama de Mileto: El nacimiento de la ciencia en la Antigua Grecia (Alianza Ensayo nº 813)

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Kayıp Mesih: Sabetay Sevi'nin İzini Sürerken

3.5/5 ( ratings)

La llama de Mileto: El nacimiento de la ciencia en la Antigua Grecia (Alianza Ensayo nº 813)

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?

loader