Methods in the Exact Sciences of the Ancient and Medieval Periods

该博士后奖学金旨在发展语言技能，以开展中世纪阿拉伯语古代精确科学的方法和实践的研究。PI将获得将证据置于中世纪伊斯兰教文化中的历史背景。这些技能和知识将用于一个关于古代和中世纪天文学数学方法的合作项目。这位学者是希腊罗马时期和中世纪阿拉伯时期的精确科学专家，在这两个领域都有很好的出版记录。该项目将研究使用古希腊罗马时期的球面几何学产生天文知识的不同方法。在古代，有许多不同的方法来处理球面问题。人们通常认为，古代的球形方法有一个历史的进步，从简单到更强大和复杂。事实上，每种方法产生知识的方式是不同的，问题只能用一种特定的方法来解决。在中世纪和现代早期，所有古老的方法作为产生天文知识的互补方式继续共存。在许多情况下，拉丁语或阿拉伯语的翻译是我们寻找丢失的希腊语原件的唯一证据。为了将考证技术应用于这些文本，有必要将这些翻译放在它们的文化和语言语境中，同时仍然将它们作为更古老作品的见证者来阅读。这意味着要对文本和对它们所做的编辑修改保持敏感。通过使用文本比较的方法，研究者将能够阐明，不仅是原始文本的形式，而且是这些文本在中世纪传播的条件。该项目将对文本进行研究，以确定在资料来源的知识和文化背景下的数学程序的特点。然后，它将继续使用更强大的现代数学来探索这些不同方法的特性，这将使人们能够看到古代方法的全部范围和局限性。最后，它将通过平衡重建展示这些方法可能如何在实践中使用。这项研究将是越来越多的近期工作的一部分，这些工作不仅从其产生的理论陈述方面探索历史科学，而且还从条件、问题和实践方面探索历史科学。虽然没有证据表明历史学家洞察科学发现的过程，但通过提取古代文本中见证的实践，这项研究将提供更好的理解，科学家们用来产生他们的结果的方法。这项研究将有助于我们理解古代和中世纪数学天文学产生过程中使用的方法和实践。这项研究最令人兴奋的方面之一将是遵循一个连续的科学传统，因为它通过不同的文化和语言传播。该项目将提供一个重要的案例，研究如何将数学天文学的特殊文本、定理和方法从古希腊罗马时代传播到阿拉伯文，然后再传到拉丁文中世纪。

This Postdoctoral Fellowship is to develop the language skills to conduct research in the methods and practices of the ancient exact sciences of medieval Arabic. The PI will acquire the historical background to situate the evidence within the culture of medieval Islam. These skills and knowledge will be applied in a collaborative project on the mathematical methods of ancient and medieval astronomy. The scholar host is an expert in the exact sciences of both the Greco-Roman and medieval Arabic periods, with a strong publishing record in both areas. The project will investigate different approaches to producing astronomical knowledge using spherical geometry in Greco-Roman Antiquity. There were a number of different ways of approaching spherical problems in the ancient period. It has usually been assumed that there was an historical progression in ancient spherical methods, moving from the simpler to the more powerful and complex. In fact the ways in which knowledge was produced in each method are different and problems can only be solved with a particular approach. All ancient methods continued to coexist as complementary ways to produce astronomical knowledge in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. In a number of cases, the Latin or Arabic translations are our only evidence for a lost Greek original. In order to apply the techniques of textual studies to these texts, it will be necessary to situate the translations in their cultural and linguistic contexts while still reading them as witnesses of much older work. This means being sensitive to the texts and the editorial changes that have been made to them.. By using the method of textual comparison, the investigators will be able to shed light, not only on the form of the original texts, but also on the conditions of the medieval transmission of these texts. The project will undertake a study of the texts to develop a characterization of the mathematical procedures that is situated in the intellectual and cultural context of the sources. It will then proceed to an exploration of the properties of these different approaches using more powerful, modern mathematics which will allow the full range and limitations of the ancient methods to be seen. Finally, it will show, through balanced reconstruction, how these methods might have been used in practice. This study will be part of a growing body of recent work that explores historical science not simply in terms of the theoretical statements it produced but also with regard to the conditions, problems and practices. Although there is no evidence that historians have insight into the process of scientific discovery, by drawing out the practices witnessed in the ancient texts, this study will furnish a better understanding of the methods that scientists used to generate their results. This study will contribute to our understanding of the methods and practices used in the production of ancient and medieval mathematical astronomy. One of the most exiting aspects of this study will be following a continuous scientific tradition as it was transmitted through different cultures and languages. This project will provide an important case study of the transmission of particular texts, theorems and methods of mathematical astronomy from Greco-Roman Antiquity into the Arabic, and thence Latin Middle Ages.