Geometry, the sphere and the heavens

This lesson asks you to understand what scientific inquiry was in the classical world and why it mattered. The museum offers three names from Arabic sources, Euclid, Archimedes and Ptolemy, with what those sources say about their books. The other thinkers named in the expectation, and the content of their work, are for your class to bring. ¹

For each author, list the books the source names and the field each belongs to, then ask which survive and how we know. Compare what the source says about the author with what you can say about the books.

See what Arabic readers did with a Greek book. In the record of Euclid, Ibn al-Nadim counts him among the mathematical philosophers, as earlier than Archimedes and others, and names his book on the principles of geometry "al-Istarushiya". ² He then names those who commented on it: Ayun commented on it and explained its doubts, and al-Nayrizi wrote a commentary; al-Jawhari has a commentary from its beginning to its end, and al-Mahani wrote a commentary on the fifth treatise. ² The record names the commentators and does not say what they wrote.

A report of burned books can be read as a report that Archimedes was lost. The record is more careful. Ibn al-Nadim relates from a reliable source that the Byzantines burned fifteen loads of the books of Archimedes. He then lists those that survive, among them the book of the sphere and the cylinder, the book on squaring the circle, and the book on triangles. ³ The burning is reported on the word of a reliable source, not on Ibn al-Nadim's own sight, and the record does not say who that source was.

The witnesses are not one. For Euclid and Archimedes the record relies on Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist; for Euclid it names translators and commentators, and for Archimedes it passes on a report from a reliable source. ^{2 3} For Ptolemy, al-Mas'udi is the witness: he mentions him among the first who advanced in the sciences of the heavens before those who came after Islam, as author of the "Almagest" and the "Geography", in which he counted four thousand two hundred cities. ⁴ What the records hold are titles and reports of reading, not the books themselves.

The record gives a report of fifteen burned loads of Archimedes and a list of his books that survive. What can a reader conclude from such a list about what Archimedes wrote, and what would you want to see to be sure, and why?

• Uqlidis (Euclid): his book, its translators and its commentators in the Fihrist.
• Arshimidis (Archimedes): the report of the burning and the list of the books that survive.
• Batlamus (Ptolemy): his two books as al-Mas'udi names them.

Read Uqlidis, Arshimidis and Ptolemy. Make a table with three columns: author, books named, field.