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Prof Kevin Krisciunas Tex A&M - Keynote Speaker of IMPMS 2017
Dr. Krisciunas did his undergraduate work at the University of Illinois and completed his doctorate (Ph. D) from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2000.
He has been a faculty member at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, since 2006. He teaches astronomy to undergraduate students.
He spent three years as a Research Associate at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and Las Campanas Observatory in La Serena, Chile, then was a research professor at Notre Dame.
At Texas A&M, his research on Type Ia supernovae has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation since 2007.
He has been the first author or coauthor of more than 100 refereed scientific papers.
He appeared in Episode 1 of the 6 part PBS series, The Astronomers.
He has expertise in the history of astronomy, including the Muslim contributions to the astronomical sciences.
Summary of talk at TCU on March 31, 2017, by Kevin Krisciunas
The most important astronomical work of the 16th century was Nicholas Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543). The principal “machinery” for Copernicus’s revolutionary new Sun-centered cosmos came from two sources. His book parallels The Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy (ca 150 AD). The version of The Almagest used by Copernicus was the 1515 edition published in Venice. It had been translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in 1175, who worked in Toledo (in al-Andalus, modern-day Spain) and collaborated with one or more Jewish scholars. Gerard’s Latin version was probably based on the Arabic translation made in Baghdad by al-Hajjaj in Yunus ibn Matar in 829 AD.
Copernicus’s preliminary exposition of his ideas, the Commentariolus (1514), and his final book used two important mathematical breakthroughs from the “Maragha school” of astronomers: Mu’ayyad al-Din al-‘Urdi (d. 1266), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1275), and Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375) of Damascus. In particular, Copernicus’s work employed the “Tusi couple” and ‘Urdi’s lemma. These are technicalities fully understood only by experts. In 1957 Otto Neugebauer accidentally discovered a Greek-language manuscript that probably reached Italy after the 1453 fall of Constantinople to the Turks and which contains a diagram showing al-Tusi’s couple. There is extremely strong circumstantial evidence that Copernicus must have become familiar with ‘Urdi’s lemma and Tusi’s couple during his time in Italy (1496-1504). It is clear that the translation and preservation of ancient Greek astronomy in the Muslim world and the addition of two mathematical innovations by Muslim astronomers of the Maragha school gave a very significant boost to Renaissance astronomy.
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Lost History
The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists
Michael Hamilton Morgan
The impetus for the book came after the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, as the author felt a need at the beginning of the 21st century to show this forgotten, ignored, suppressed, and misunderstood Islamic history to the wider community.
In 732 A.D., when the rapid expansion of the Muslim empire was halted in northern France, the energies of Muslims turned into inventions and creations. Baghdad became the learning center during Caliph-Al-Mamoom (813-833 A.D.). He established the great learning center “House of Wisdom,” where all the existing scholarly work of Greek, Roman, Persian, and Hindu classics was translated into Arabic and lay the foundation of Modern Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Philosophy, and Medicine. Over the next four centuries, Baghdad grew into a global intellectual center with Universities, Urban Hospitals, and Observatories. During these four centuries Cardoba in the Eastern part of the world became the most advanced learning center for Europe under the Islamic Empire. It has learning institutions, libraries, hospitals, and a high public literacy rate. Its libraries contained more books than the rest of Europe.
In the next chapter, he wrote about Khawarizimi, whose translated work became the core of mathematics and astronomy textbooks in Europe and the Muslim world. Khawarizimi’s greatest breakthrough was placing the Zero at the center of the mathematical universe and developing the concept of positive and negative values. He is also recognized as the father of Algebra.
Chapter four features the Persian Omar-Khayyam, who, besides being a renowned poet, was a mathematical and astronomical genius. In 1079, Omar-Khayyam calculated the length of the Solar System to be 365.24219858156. Omar Khayam also determined that the Earth revolves on its axis and that heavenly bodies do not orbit the Earth.
Chapter six, entitled, Healer and Hospitals, discusses the contributions of the world-renowned, Al-Zahrawi of Cardoba, who developed the forceps for delivery in 1005. He described Al-Zahrawi as the Andalusian master surgeon, the Muslim lord of Obstetrics, Dentistry, and Pharmaceuticals. His 30-volume compendium Al-Tasrif describes all inventions, and in the next 300 years, all his work was translated into European languages and used as textbooks in medical schools. He was the inventor of 100 surgical instruments.
Al-Razi, another physician of Baghdad, wrote 200 books on Medicine. He questioned the teaching and traditions of Galen. He was the first physician to differentiate between smallpox and measles. He invented laboratory equipment and discovered medications for the treatment of common ailments. He initiated formal training programs for physicians.
Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna and the prince of physicians, had a profound influence on Europe for six centuries as the greatest medical thinker of all times. His famous encyclopedic work on medicine, “Qanoon-Fi-Al-Tibb” (The Cannon Of Medicine), was translated into many European languages and used as textbooks for six hundred years until the 16th century. Al-Razi’s work and the Canon of Avicenna did more to develop European medicine and thought than any other body of work. Ibn-Sina concluded that TB is an infectious disease and that hookworm causes intestinal ailments. He set down scientific rules for testing and rating the effectiveness of drugs in treating various conditions – rules for standard clinical drug trials.
Another physician Ibn-Zahoor (Avenzoar), emerged in Seville, Spain. He acquired fame for his animal experiments, including trying tracheostomy on goats and, subsequently, on humans. The author then described the work of Ibn-Nafiz Cairo, the head of Al-Mansoor Hospital and the dean of the School of Medicine. In 1284, he discovered the true anatomy and functioning of the heart and how blood flows through it to the lungs, where it mixes with the air. Some 350 years later, in 1628, William Harvey began to expand his ideas regarding blood circulation.
In the final chapter, Mr.Morgan highlighted the qualities of Muslim leadership using the examples of Caliph Abu-Bakar to Ali, who champions the ethos of social fairness and justice and tolerance of diversity in faith, nationality, and ethnicity. The fourth Caliph, Ali, wrote a detailed template for enlightened leadership which later surfaced in Ummiad and Abbasi Caliphs.