Talk:Timeline of Muslim scientists and engineers

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Contents

[edit] Guidelines for style and organization

Some of the style guidelines are obvious and well known to most. But hey it's nice to be thorough.

  • None of the guidelines below should contradict wikipedia style and organization guidelines.
  • All entries should be list items.
  • The timeline is to be sectioned by century. Century section headings should give the century's number in roman numerals.
  • approximate year dates should be preceded by ca. (abbreviation for circa).
  • Dates are given using the gregorian calendar. Hijra calendar dates should be identified with AH.
  • I figure the separator between the date and the content of a timeline entry should be a sequence of one or more keywords ordered alphabetically and enclosed in square brackets, naming the research field for which the entry is most relevant; eg, [mathematics], [ceramics; materials; metallurgy] and so on.
  • References: Instead of an external links section, a "References" section is used with external links given in it as needed. The references are numbered so they can be used for citations in the body of the text.
  • Entries that are bloated due to biographical detail should instead link to the subject's own article, and create it if it does not already exist.
  • Keywords or at least some of them should be bold for faster browsing.
  • There may need to be a reworking of the article's title, and thus its placement in any larger structure of articles.

--Universaliss 12:20, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Entry is off-topic and should be removed: "1207 - 1273 [sociology; poetry; spirituality] Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, one of the best known persian passion poets..." ~~


[edit] Resource?

I found a resource, but is it good? It is well referenced:

Khaleel, Kasem (2000). The Arabian connection: A conspiracy against humanity. Lincolnshire, IL: Knowledge House Publishers. ISBN: 0-911119-70-1.

A neighbor recommended it, and it is available on Amazon. While it does not appear to be biased, it does have a somewhat personal tone, however thoroughly referenced.

He asks the question: "Who originated the modern sciences?" The book purports to answer this question.

Cover bio: "Dr. Kasem Khaleel is a medical writer specializing in health and the history of science. The author of over twelve books, his ten year study in the field of scientific history culminated in the publication of this book."

--Anonymous writer

[edit] first manned rockets

"1600s [flight; rocketry] Turkish scientist Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi took off from Galata tower and flew over the Bosphorus. Lagari Hasan Çelebi, another member of the Celebi family, sent the first manned rocket, using 150 okka (about 300 pounds) of gunpowder as the firing fuel. This is more than two hundred years before similar attempts in Modern Europe and the United States."

were there not chinese experiments in manned rocketry hundreds of years before this?

ah, it turns out that i was thinking about the legend of Wan Hu, which takes place in the 16th century.

[edit] first war rockets

Sultan of Misore coud not be an inventor of war rockets. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Siemienowicz

[edit] Text on amicable numbers misses Descartes contribution to same pair.

The text, "1600s [mathematics] The Arabic mathematician Mohammed Baqir Yazdi gave the pair of amicable numbers 9,363,584 and 9,437,056 still many years before Euler's contribution [1]." was copied from http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html and the way it reads misses that according to http://amicable.adsl.dk/aliquot/c2/c2_7.txt (this link was taken from the Wikipedia page Amicable_number and as can be seen from http://amicable.homepage.dk/apstat.htm#discoverer ) that single pair is joint discovered by Decartes i.e. it is recorded as Yazdi/Decartes. Euler obviously came later (well he was born later, duh!) and has 59 pairs to his name. Also interestingly that original copied reference, http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html also mentions the pair 17296 and 18416 and also says how these had been mistakenly attributed to Euler, "He also gave the pair of amicable numbers 17296, 18416 which have been attributed to Euler, but we know that these were known earlier than al-Farisi, perhaps even by Thabit ibn Qurra himself." Other sites attribute this to Fermat and not Euler, and would show this as being found by all of al-Banna, Farisi and Fermat. That site linked on the Wikipedia page as reference [1] for the Arabic mathematics at the University of St-Andrews Scotland really has a thing with Euler and that raises issues with its accuracy. I have no idea how to change this other than to say that Yazdi was co-discoverer of that pair with Descartes (1636)...but that doesn't really spin it right now does it ? Ttiotsw 23:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've updated it to state joint discovery with Descartes. Ttiotsw 19:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Plus the 17296, 18416 reworded to mention Fermat and not Euler.Ttiotsw 19:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Text on ibn al-Haitham implies he knew proof 750 years before Lagrange. This is wrong.

The last paragraph in the section for 965 - 1040 ...has the last sentence as "... Lagrange gave the first known proof in 1771, ... more than 750 years after al-Haytham." There is no evidence that "al-Haytham" found a proof. He just stated the theorem. It even says so in the reference. The "750" year value was copied from http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html and reworded. This is very much WP:OR. Please get it right - with these mistakes you make a mockery of both the contributions of ibn al-Haitham and Lagrange to mathematics. Ttiotsw 23:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Reworded to mention Lagrange. Ttiotsw 19:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does this topic conform to NPOV?

Im athiest, so i dont care either way, but shouldn't there also be Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish Science as well?

Also, is not science and technology a seperate subject (not neccisarily mutually exclusive) to a religion.

This article would do much better to be "Timeline of Human Science and Technology" or at least "Timeline of Middle-east Science and Technology" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.233.221.252 (talk) 13:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Suggestion to change title into "Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world"

Although a lot of the science described hier is very important, I have my doubts that this is all "Islamic science".

The reasons for my doubts are: Today there is no pure "Islamic science" under the term of what we understand as "physical Science". Science is science, that's it. So science in the Islamic world is just science, not Islamic science. Under the official term "science" there isn't also no Christain science, Jewish science, or whatever.

But, under certain cirumstances we can name it indeed Islamic science:

  • Political geographically based argument: During the Islamic empire, when it was a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory. In this case there is an argument to name it "Islamic science". For example it is normal talk about Belgium science (Science performed by a person from Belgium), Maroccan science (science performed bu a person from Marocco). But concerning todays, it is strange to talk about Islamic science, since this linguistically implies science performed by a Islamist or a Moslim, hereby linking the religion of that person with the science he is doing. As I told earlier, in this point of view it is also strange to talk about "Jewish science" (however, Israelian science is correct). Unlike Europe (the continent), the Islam is not a a geographical entity, and unlike the European Union the Islamic world is not a Political geographically union also. Althought the last one is a weak argument. At the wikipedia you will not find any sites about "European sciences", only maybe something like "Science in (the) Europe (Union)". Also you will not find a site "Western science". But to name it Islamic science according during the Islamic Empire is, I think, correct. According to todays, "Islamic world science" is also okay, although a little strange and murky to me, since we do not also speak about "Sciences in Catholic countries in the world".
  • Cultural entity based argument: Science developed purely based on the merit of a Islamic culture. Some argue that this is the case indeed with science in the Islamic world during the period of Islamic civilization. I personally disagree with this argument, because science is not developed purely on the merit of that culture, without outside knowledge or influences. For example, science during that period was based and influenced by the sciences from Europe and vice versa. Only under very very special circumstances this argument is valid, for example science in the Empire of China during the their period of isolation (although the political geographically based argument is already valid according to China). Or maybe science or technology in South Amerika before there was contact with the Europeans.
  • Ethnic based argument: Science or technology developed by an ethnic group or race. For example the arrow developed by an American Indian. Although this argument is a dubious and a maybe racist one, for example "white science".
  • Religion based argument: In some circumstances we can speak of religious science, when we speak of science according to the interpretation of the holy book of that religion. See for example Christian Science.

Conclusion: according to the arguments, and the fact that this site described sciences upto the 20th century, it does not meet the above criteria.

So, I think that the topic name of this page should be changed from "Timeline of Islamic science and technology" to "Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world". But I'm not going to change the title for the upcoming two days, first I want to know from someone about why and how of the present title Demophon 14:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the title. Demophon 18:09, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split into two articles?

I think it would be a good idea to split this article into two seperate articles, to reduce the size of the article and to make space for more additions. One article can deal with the timeline of Islamic science, and the other with the timeline of Muslim technology. Any comments? Jagged 85 00:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title and citations

Great article, but does the title ("Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world") reflect the content? Many of the later entries refer to Muslim scientists who were active (and often born) outside the Islamic world: for example, Pierre Omidyar and Jawed Karim were both born in the West, while Ahmed Zewail, Fazlur Khan, Abdus Salam, etc were all active there.

Also, are we certain that all the entries are Muslim? For example, Jawed Karim's mother was a German woman called Christine, while Lotfi Zadeh is listed online as having a Jewish Russian mother. The problem is that most scientists don't write about their religious views (Abdus Salam being a notable exception). Without sources, even Pierre Omidyar could potentially be a Christian or Zorastrian. Udzu (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

No response, so I've renamed the article "Timeline of Muslim scientists and engineers", and added a refimprovesect for the 20th and 21st century scientists. Udzu (talk) 10:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Unless there is a clear ref that states they are Muslim then a number of the 20th/21st century can be removed. I'll individual flag each one. If they stay unref'd then we eventually delete the entry. Ttiotsw (talk) 06:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)