Research Islamic Astronomers: The 9th and 12th Centuries (Essay Sample)

Case: Islamic astronomers
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ISLAMIC ASTRONOMERS
The effort of the Islamic astronomers who were there between the 9th and 12th centuries was accurate as well as innovative. The impact they made was experienced even in the future generations. Majority of the fundamental concepts of contemporary astronomy were either built up by them or came about as result of their impact on the later astronomers. Some of the Islamic astronomers and their works are featured below.
Al-Khwarizmi thought about the arithmetical depiction of the complexity of the creations of God and the concealed codes of the cosmos. He wrote mathematical concepts, dreamt of numbers and everything about his life was just about numbers. Al-Khwarizmi was a Muslim geographer, astronomer and scientist. It is him who introduced the number zero as well as being the founder of Algebra. Even the name Algebra itself was itself was gotten from his book Al-Jabr-Wa-al-Muqabalah. Al-Khwarizmi also discovered and developed the decimal system as well as Algorithm CITATION Tho14 \l 1033 (Glick, Livesey, & Wallis, 2014)
Al- Battani who was born in Harran ca. 859, which is currently Turkey, discovered the particular determination of the astral year as consisting of 365 days, 5hours, and 46 minutes and 24 seconds. His exceptional discovery of the lunar and solar eclipses were used by another person known as Dunthorne in the year 1749 to establish the secular increase of velocity of the moon. Al- Battani also produced the Zij astronomic tables that were referred by Copernicus in his piece of work about the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. He used Al-Battani’s tables for a total of twenty three times. He also discovered the timing of the new moon, the phenomenon of parallax as well as the prediction of the moon and solar eclipse CITATION Jos14 \l 1033 (Angelo, 2014).
Al-Sufi also known as Abd al-Rahman was among the extraordinary Islamic Astronomers of the old age. He was the very first person to describe about the Nebulosity. It is he who gave a name to the group of southern group of stars and called them Al-Baqar al- Abyad (White Bull) after getting the reports from the Arab navigators in Malay Archipelago. Al-Sufi also arranged the charts of the heavens as a result of his annotations and cautiously pronounced their magnitudes. His book known as ‘Kitab al-Kawatib al-Musawwar was used as an important aspect on planetary astronomy. The book is available in the original Arabic language as well as in French translation. It is considered very essential even to date as it is used in the study of motions together with long duration variables CITATION Jer11 \l 1033 (Cavin, 2011).
Al-Mamun another Islamic astronomer carried out the commencement of Muslim astronomy as a discipline in the field of science. In the year 1832 he was able to set up a scholarly academy known as the House of Wisdom. This is where the works of Ptolemy and Aristotle, Socrates and Archimedes got translated into the Arabic language. It is in this academy that the astronomers and mathematicians brought together their efforts in making use of the state of the art technology of those days. Example of such technology was sextants, star charts and astrolabes.
The observations made by the scientists and astronomers in the House of wisdom set up by Al-Mamun were presented and published in a book called Muhtahan. Under the support of Al-Mamun the financial support of the House of Wisdom as well as scholarship was generally increased. The House of Wisdom was able to bring the society to an understanding of the value of knowledge and to appreciate it. The house was also able to sustain the translators and scholars as well as giving them a status because education was highly valued in those days CITATION Pat141 \l 1033 (Moore & Rees, 2014).
Jabir Ibn Hayyan is another Islamic scientist who was also known as the father of modern chemistry. He was born in the year 721 and died ninety four years later. He was brought up in Tus village which is the present day Iran. He was raised in a family where people had the knowledge about chemistry. This was due to the fact that his father was a pharmacist in those days.
Jabir created scales that were able to weigh accurately the mass of a sixth of a gram. He believed he could experiment with matter by mixing, heating, grinding, cooling as well as stirring and baking different substances. In his chemical process experiments, he was able to prompt various reactions such as calcinations, reduction and distillation. Making use of his alembic he was able to discover an effortless way in which distillation could be carried out.
Through his discovery it was possible to filter mineral oil into kerosene. Jabir also discovered some new substances such as nitric acid, sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid as well. These discoveries are very essential in today’s chemistry and are of a great significance the chemical industry at large CITATION Raf13 \l 1033 (Aliyev, 2013).
Al-Biruni another Muslim astronomer was born in 973 and died in the year 1048 in Ghazni which is today known as Afghanistan. He was a Persian intellect and polymath of those days. The early Muslims discovered the method of Eratosthenes which was used to measure the circumference of the earth. Al-Biruni however brought up a better idea of doing the same. Biruni became the first astronomer to carry out a sophisticated experiment in relation to the astronomical phenomena.
In his experiment, he made an assumption that the Milky Way galaxy is a collection of tenuous stars and in Khorasan he was able to observe and give a detailed description about the lunar and solar eclipses. He was also able to give the precise latitudes of the heavenly stars during the eclipse of the moon. In the year 1031 Biruni was able to complete his wide astronomical book called ‘Kitab al-Qanun al-Mas’udi. In this book he recorded his findings on astronomy and formulated the astronomical tables. The book gives an introduction of a mathematical aspect that is used to analyze the speeding up of planets. He also establishes that the apogee of the solar and its precession are not similar. Biruni also discovered that the distance between the sun and earth is larger than the estimate of the Ptolemy CITATION Bil06 \l 1033 (Bill, 2006).
Al-Farghani was also one of the famous Islam astronomers. He was born in Farghana and he died in Egypt. His book known as Elements of Astronomy was one of the most popular books about astronomy and t was later translated into Latin. The book was about celestial motions that included a complete history about the stars. The book generated some great impact on the European astronomy. It is this book that was responsible for the spreading of Ptolemic astronomy. Alfraganus was also able to positively influence an Italian poet Dante Alighieri who was his inspiration.
Al-Zarqali is another Muslim astronomer who was successive. He was the first to confirm that the motion the Aphelion in relation to the stars. The Aphelion refers to that point on a planet’s orbit that is the very furthest from the sun. He became successful in the construction of some precision instruments to be used in astronomy. He constructed some flat astrolabe that is universally used at any place or any latitude. In his constructions Al-Zarqali also constructed an instrument by the name equatorium. It was used in the computation of the positions of celestial bodies.
His works were translated into Spanish in the thirteenth century. Copernicus appreciated the work of Al-Zarqali and at several instances he did quote from his works. To add onto the constructions of Al-Zarqali he constructed a water clock that has the ability to get the hours of the night and day during the months of the eclipse CITATION Deb14 \l 1033 (An...