Everything about Science In The Middle Ages totally explained
Science in the Middle Ages progressed dramatically from the time of
antiquity in areas as diverse as
astronomy,
medicine, and
mathematics. Whereas the ancient cultures of the world (for example those prior to the
fall of Rome and the dawn of
Islam) had developed many of the foundations of science, it was during the Middle Ages that the
scientific method was born and science became a formal discipline separate from
philosophy. Although there were scientific discoveries throughout the world, the
Islamic world around the
Mediterranean and
China led the
Medieval age in major accomplishments thanks to scholars such as
Alhazen and
Shen Kuo.
The
Roman/Byzantine Empire, which was the most sophisticated culture during antiquity, suffered
dramatic losses limiting its scientific prowess during the Medieval period. Christian
Western Europe had suffered a catastrophic loss of fortune following the fall of the
Western Roman Empire leading to centuries of backwardness. But thanks to the
Church scholars such as
Aquinas and
Buridan, the West carried on at least the spirit of scientific inquiry which would later lead to Europe's taking the lead in science during the
Scientific Revolution using
translations of medieval works.
Major accomplishments
Although there were numerous scientific accomplishments during the Middle Ages the following are notable discoveries which advanced the world of science.
- Scientific method - The scientific method, as systematic approach to theory and experimentation, developed during the Middle Ages due to the work of scholars such as Alhazen, Biruni, Bacon, and Robert Grosseteste, who produced a systemized process of scientific enquiry based upon observation, experimentation and verification of hypotheses.
- Physics - In the 6th Century John Philoponus in his critique of Aristotle’s theory of motion introduced the concept of “impressed force” to explain why thrown objects continued to move after loosing contact with the thrower. This concept was further developed by Islamic scholars such as Avicenna in the 11th Century as well as Avempace and Abu’l Barakat in the 12th Century. This concept was adopted by western scholars and achieved its most developed form in the hands of Jean Buridan in the 14th Century, who first called it the impetus theory. Galileo further developed this into the theory of inertia, which after further modification, through Descartes, became Newton’s First Law of Motion.
- Arithmetic and Algebra- the Islamic scholar Al-Khwarizmi was the author of two books that changed the face of both Islamic and European mathematics. His “De numero indorum” (which only exists in Latin translation; no Arabic original is known) introduced the Hindu decimal place value number system first into the Arab world in the 9th Century and then into Europe in the 12th Century. His “al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala” was a compendium of basic algebra, a word taken from the title of the book, drawn from Babylonian, Greek and Indian sources. In it he demonstrates how to solve linear and quadratic equations but only those with positive solutions. Brahmagupta, one of his main sources, was already dealing with negative solutions in the 7th Century. Later Islamic mathematicians extended Al-Khwarizmi’s results to those polynomials of higher degree that could be reduced to quadratics through substitution. His arithmetic was taught as Algorithmus, a corruption of his name, in mediaeval universities as a part of computus. His arithmetic and algebra were popularised in Europe through the publication of the Liber abbaci by Leonardo of Pisa in the 13th century. .
- Differential calculus - The concepts of tangential lines and infinitesimals were developed by the ancient Greeks but it was Medieval scholars, notably Bhaskara, that developed the basic mathematical framework for modern differential calculus.
- Optics- the Greeks treated optics as three independent disciplines; theories of philosophical or physical optics the Atomist, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics; physiological theories of the eye Galen and geometrical optics Euclid, Hero and Ptolemaeus. In the 10th Century the Islamic polymath Alhazen became the first thinker to combine all three fields into an integrated science of optics. This was however not just a work of synthesis as he made original contribution to the field. Whereas the Greeks had merely assumed the linear propagation of light Alhazen proved it with empirical experiments. He also demonstrated that geometrical optics functions equally well with an intromission theory of vision whereas Euclid, Hero and Ptolemaeus had all assumed an extramission theory. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, he integrated al-Kindi’s scheme of incoherent radiation from point sources, which became one of the most basic principles of Kepler’s theory of vision. In the 13th Century Alhazen’s optics were transmitted into mediaeval Europe in the work of Roger Bacon, John Pecham and Witelo and provided the fundament on which Kepler erected the modern theory of optics.
- Modern surgery - Although the first known surgical text was written by Sushruta in antiquity, Medieval researchers, especially Abulcasis, developed the techniques and tools that led to modern surgical practices (for example double-edged scalpel, syringe, vaginal speculum, etc.). The 1266 work Chirurgia, (Surgery), by Theodoric Borgognoni advocates antiseptic surgery, in opposition to the Arab belief in "laudable pus."
- Alchemy-Chemistry- As with other disciplines Islamic alchemy was drawn from multiple sources-Greek, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese and as with other disciplines the whole was significantly greater than the parts. Islamic culture created a vast corpus of alchemic literature that through transfer into Europe during the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance had a major effect on the development of science. The most influential texts were the so-called Jaberian corpus (actually written in the 10th Century by the Ism’iliya, or Brotherhood of Purity), the “Summa Perfectionis” of Paulus de Tarento and the “Secret of Secrets” of al-Razi. The first two introduced atomism and the sulphur-mercury theory as competitors to Aristotle’s theory of matter. Al-Razi described many of the methods and much of the equipment that formed the basis of work in chemistry, metallurgy and pharmacology up to the middle of the 19th Century.
- Trigonometry-was invented by the Greek astronomers Hipparchus, Menelaus and Ptolemaeus in order to facilitate their astronomical calculations. Greek trigonometry was chordal; that's angles were represented by the chords of a circle. According to Ptolemaeus, Hipparchus produced a table of chords that's no longer extant; Menelaus laid the foundations for spherical trigonometry in his “Sphaerica” whilst Ptolemaeus himself produced the most extensive trigonometry text as the first book of his “Syntaxis Mathematike”. Greek trigonometry was always handled as an adjunct to astronomy. The Hindus who probably took over much of their astronomy from the Greeks replaced the Greek chordal trigonometry with half chords producing the equivalent of our sine and cosine. The most important Hindu trigonometry texts are the “Surya Siddhanta” (4th Century), the “Aryabhatiya” (5th Century) and the “Siddhanta Shiromani” (12th Century) as with the Greeks all of these are astronomy texts. The Islamic astronomers took over Ptolemaeus’ mathematical astronomy but replaced his chordal trigonometry with the Hindu half chord trigonometry. With time they also introduced the secant, cosecant, tangent and cotangent. In the 13th Century al-Tusi produced the first complete work on planar and spherical trigonometry including all six trigonometrical relations and treating trigonometry as an independent mathematical discipline with no reference to astronomy. Although known earlier trigonometry only really came into use in Europe when Peurbach and Regiomontanus revived mathematical astronomy in the middle of the 15th Century. Like the Islamic astronomers they replaced the Ptolemaic chordal trigonometry with Hindu-Arabic half cord trigonometry.
- Technologies for navigation - Although primitive versions of the technologies were known in antiquity, it was during the Middle Ages that key technologies such as the latitude-independent astrolabe (Arzachel) and the portable compass (Shen Kuo) were developed as practical tools for navigation, especially on the open seas. In the thirteenth century Peter of Maricourt made two major innovations to improve the accuracy and practicality of the magnetic compass by adding a calibrated scale and placing the magnet on a pivot.
- Accurate lunar models - The motions of the moon and planets had been studied for millenia. The Middle Ages produced the first model of lunar motion (developed by Ibn al-Shatir) which matched physical observations. This and other developments in planetary models are believed to have been used by the Renaissance astronomer Copernicus.
- Incendiary weapons and bombs - The use of fire and flammable materials in warfare are as old as mankind itself but the Middle Ages took the science from simple recipes and brute force approaches to sophisticated formulae and devices. These included everything from flamethrowers (developed in the Byzantine Empire and China) to land/sea mines and solid-fuel rockets (developed in China).
Because of the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the medieval Muslim empires much of the scientific progress of the Middle Ages became "lost" (for example the expertise but not necessarily the texts) until it was rediscovered by Europe during the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
Western Europe
Overview
Scientific inquiry was never particularly strong in the Latin side of the Roman Empire, especially when compared with its Greek (Hellenistic) counterpart. As imperial authority effectively
ended in the West during the 5th century,
Western Europe entered the Middle Ages with great difficulties that affected the continent's intellectual production dramatically. Most classical scientific treatises of
classical antiquity (in
Greek) were unavailable, leaving only simplified summaries and compilations. Notwithstanding, with the beginning of the
Renaissance of the 12th century, interest in natural investigation was renewed. Science developed in this golden period of
Scholastic philosophy focused on
logic and advocated
empiricism, perceiving nature as a coherent system of laws that could be explained in the light of reason. With this view the medieval men of science went in search of explanations for the phenomena of the
universe and achieved important advances in areas such as
scientific methodology and
physics, among many others. These advances, however, were suddenly interrupted by the
Black Plague and are virtually unknown to the lay public of today, partly because most theories advanced in medieval science are today
obsolete, and partly because of the
stereotype of Middle Ages as supposedly "
Dark Ages".
See also: Medieval medicine, Medieval philosophy
The
Western Roman Empire, although united by
Latin as a common language, still harbored a great number of different cultures that were not completely assimilated by the Roman culture. Debilitated by migrations, barbarian invasions and the political disintegration of
Rome in the
5th century, and isolated from the rest of the world by the spread of
Islam in the
7th century, the European West became a tapestry of rural populations and semi-
nomad peoples. The political instability and the downfall of urban life had a strong, negative impact on the cultural life of the continent. The
Catholic Church, being the only institution to survive the process, maintained what was left of intellectual strength, especially through
monasticism. Until the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Western Europe, excepting the
Muslim lands, would lag far behind the scientific knowledge of the Eastern Roman, or
Byzantine, Empire and the
Muslim empires.
In the ancient world, Greek was the primary language of science. Even under the Roman Empire,
Latin texts were mainly compilations drawing on earlier Greek work; while advanced scientific research and teaching continued to be carried on in the
Hellenistic side of the empire, in Greek. Late Roman attempts to translate Greek writings into Latin had limited success.
As the knowledge of Greek declined during the transition to the Middle Ages, the Latin West found itself cut off from its Greek philosophical and scientific roots. Most scientific inquiry came to be based on information gleaned from sources which were often incomplete and posed serious problems of interpretation. Latin-speakers who wanted to learn about science only had access to books by such Roman writers as
Chalcidius,
Macrobius,
Martianus Capella,
Boethius,
Cassiodorus, and later Latin
encyclopedists. Much had to be gleaned from non-scientific sources: Roman surveying manuals were read for what geometry was included.
Deurbanization reduced the scope of education and by the sixth century teaching and learning moved to monastic and cathedral schools, with the center of education being the study of the Bible. Education of the laity survived modestly in Italy, Spain, and the southern part of Gaul, where Roman influences were most long-lasting. In the seventh century, learning began to emerge in Ireland and the Celtic lands, where Latin was a foreign language and Latin texts were eagerly studied and taught.
The leading scholars of the early centuries were
clergymen for whom the study of
nature was but a small part of their interest. They lived in an atmosphere which provided little institutional support for the disinterested study of natural phenomena and they concentrated their attention on religious topics. The study of nature was pursued more for practical reasons than as an abstract inquiry: the need to care for the sick led to the study of medicine and of ancient texts on drugs, the need for monks to determine the proper time to pray led them to study the motion of the stars, the need to compute the date of Easter led them to study and teach rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the Sun and Moon. Modern readers may find it disconcerting that sometimes the same works discuss both the technical details of natural phenomena and their symbolic significance.
Around 800, the first attempt at rebuilding Western culture occurred (see:
Carolingian Renaissance).
Charles the Great, having succeeded at uniting a great portion of Europe under his domain, and in order to further unify and strengthen the Frankish Empire, decided to carry out a reform in
education. The
English monk
Alcuin of York elaborated a project of scholarly development aimed at resuscitating classical knowledge by establishing programs of study based upon the seven
liberal arts: the
trivium, or literary education (
grammar,
rhetoric and
dialectic) and the
quadrivium, or scientific education (
arithmetic,
geometry,
astronomy and
music). From the year
787 on,
decrees began to circulate recommending, in the whole empire, the restoration of old schools and the founding of new ones. Institutionally, these new schools were either under the responsibility of a
monastery, a
cathedral or a
noble court.
However, the 840s saw renewed disorder, with the breakup of the Frankish Empire and the beginning of a new cycle of barbarian raids. The significance of Charlemagne's educational measures would only be felt centuries later. The teaching of dialectic (a discipline that corresponds to today's
logic) was responsible for the rebirth of the interest in speculative inquiry; from this interest would follow the rise of the
Scholastic tradition of
Christian philosophy. Moreover, in the
12th and
13th century, many of those schools founded under the auspices of Charles the Great, especially the
cathedral schools, would become
universities.
See Also: Renaissance of the 12th century, Medieval technology
By the year 1000 AD, Europe remained a backwater compared to other civilizations, such as Islam. While Constantinople's population exceeded 300,000, Rome had a mere 35,000 and Paris only 20,000.
(External Link
)(External Link) However,
Christianization of the continent was making rapid progress and would eventually prove to be the long-term solution to the problem of barbarian raiding. Western Europe became more politically organized and would see a
rapid increase in population during the next centuries, which brought about great social and political changes.
The cultural scenario started to change after the
Reconquista and during the
Crusades, as interaction with the
Arabs brought Europeans into contact with preserved copies of
Ancient Greek and
Roman/
Byzantine manuscripts. During the 800s and 900s, a mass of classical Greek texts were translated by Muslim scholars into Arabic, followed by a flurry of commentaries by Islamic thinkers. Around 1050, further translation into Latin had begun in Northern Spain, and the recapture of
Toledo and
Sicily by the Christian kingdoms near the end of the century allowed the translation to begin in earnest by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Scholars came from around Europe to aid in translation.
Gerard of Cremona is a good example: an Italian who came to Spain to copy a single text, he stayed on to translate some seventy works. His biography describes how he came to Toledo: "There, seeing the abundance of books in Arabic on every subject and regretting the poverty of the Latins in these things, he learned the Arabic language, in order to be able to translate."
This period also saw the birth of
medieval universities, which aided materially in the translation, preservation and propagation of the texts of the ancients and became a new infrastructure for scientific communities. Some of these new universities were registered as an institution of international excellence by the
Holy Roman Empire, receiving the title of
Studium Generale. Most of the early
Studia Generali were found in
Italy,
France,
England, and
Spain, and these were considered the most prestigious places of learning in
Europe. This list quickly grew as new universities were founded throughout Europe. As early as the
13th century, scholars from a
Studium Generale were encouraged to give lecture courses at other institutes across Europe and to share documents, and this led to the current academic culture seen in modern European universities.
The rediscovery of the works of
Aristotle through medieval Jewish and Muslim Philosophy (
Maimonides,
Avicenna, and
Averroes) allowed the full development of the new
Christian philosophy and method of
scholasticism. By 1200 there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of
Aristotle,
Plato,
Euclid,
Ptolemy,
Archimedes and
Galen, that is, of all the intellectually crucial ancient authors except
Thucydides. During the thirteenth century the
natural philosophy of these texts began to be extended by notable
Scholastics such as
Robert Grosseteste,
Roger Bacon,
Albertus Magnus, and
Duns Scotus.
Scholastics believed in
empiricism and supporting Roman Catholic doctrines through secular study, reason, and logic. The most famous was
Thomas Aquinas (later declared a "
Doctor of the Church"), who led the move away from the
Platonic and
Augustinian and towards
Aristotelianism (although
natural philosophy wasn't his main concern). Meanwhile, precursors of the modern
scientific method can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on
mathematics as a way to understand nature and in the empirical approach admired by Roger Bacon.
Grosseteste was the founder of the famous
Oxford franciscan school. He was the first scholastic to fully understand
Aristotle's vision of the dual path of scientific reasoning. Concluding from particular observations into a universal law, and then back again: from universal laws to prediction of particulars. Grosseteste called this "resolution and composition". Further, Grosseteste said that both paths should be verified through experimentation in order to verify the principals. These ideas established a tradition that carried forward to
Padua and
Galileo Galilei in the
17th century.
Under the tuition of Grosseteste and inspired by the writings of Arab
alchemists who had preserved and built upon
Aristotle's portrait of
induction, Bacon described a repeating cycle of
observation,
hypothesis,
experimentation, and the need for independent
verification. He recorded the manner in which he conducted his experiments in precise detail so that others could reproduce and independently test his results - a cornerstone of the
scientific method, and a continuation of the work of researchers like
Al Battani.
Bacon and Grosseteste conducted investigations into
optics, although much of it was similar to what was being done at the time by Arab scholars. Bacon did make a major contribution to the development of science in medieval Europe by writing to the
Pope to encourage the study of natural science in university courses and compiling several volumes recording the state of scientific knowledge in many fields at the time. He described the possible construction of a
telescope, but there's no strong evidence of his having made one.
The first half of the 14th century saw the scientific work of great thinkers. The
logic studies by
William of Occam led him to postulate a specific formulation of the principle of
parsimony, known today as
Occam's Razor. This principle is one of the main heuristics used by modern science to select between two or more
underdetermined theories.
As Western scholars became more aware (and more accepting) of controversial scientific treatises of the Byzantine and Islamic Empires these readings sparked new insights and speculation. The works of the early Byzantine scholar
John Philoponus inspired Western scholars such as
Jean Buridan to question the received wisdom of
Aristotle's mechanics. Buridan developed the theory of
impetus which was the first step towards the modern concept of
inertia. Buridan anticipated
Isaac Newton when he wrote:
» ...after leaving the arm of the thrower, the projectile would be moved by an impetus given to it by the thrower and would continue to be moved as long as the impetus remained stronger than the resistance, and would be of infinite duration were it not diminished and corrupted by a contrary force resisting it or by something inclining it to a contrary motion
Thomas Bradwardine and his partners, the
Oxford Calculators of
Merton College, distinguished
kinematics from
dynamics, emphasizing kinematics, and investigating instantaneous velocity. They first formulated the
mean speed theorem:
a body moving with constant velocity travels distance and time equal to an accelerated body whose velocity is half the final speed of the accelerated body. They also demonstrated this theorem -- essence of "The Law of Falling Bodies" -- long before
Galileo is credited with this.
In his turn,
Nicole Oresme showed that the reasons proposed by the physics of Aristotle against the movement of the earth were not valid and adduced the argument of simplicity for the theory that the earth moves, and
not the heavens. In the whole of his argument in favor of the earth's motion Oresme is both more explicit and much clearer than that given two centuries latter by
Copernicus. He was also the first to assume that color and light are of the same nature and the discoverer of the curvature of light through
atmospheric refraction; even though, up to now, the credit for this latter achievement has been given to
Hooke.
The historian of science
Ronald Numbers notes that the modern scientific assumption of
methodological naturalism can be also traced back to the work of these medieval thinkers:
» By the late Middle Ages the search for
natural causes had come to typify the work of Christian
natural philosophers. Although characteristically leaving the door open for the possibility of direct divine intervention, they frequently expressed contempt for soft-minded contemporaries who invoked miracles rather than searching for natural explanations. The University of Paris cleric Jean Buridan (a. 1295-ca. 1358), described as "perhaps the most brilliant arts master of the Middle Ages," contrasted the philosopher’s search for "appropriate natural causes" with the common folk’s erroneous habit of attributing unusual astronomical phenomena to the supernatural. In the fourteenth century the natural philosopher Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320–82), who went on to become a Roman Catholic bishop, admonished that, in discussing various marvels of nature, "there is no reason to take recourse to the heavens, the last refuge of the weak, or demons, or to our glorious God as if He would produce these effects directly, more so than those effects whose causes we believe are well known to us."
However, a series of events that would be known as the
Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was under its way. When came the
Black Death of
1348, it sealed a sudden end to the previous period of massive scientific change. The plague killed a third of the people in Europe, especially in the crowded conditions of the towns, where the heart of innovations lay. Recurrences of the plague and other disasters caused a continuing decline of population for a century.
Renaissance of the 15th century
» See also: History of science in the Renaissance
The
15th century saw the beginning of the cultural movement of the
Renaissance. The rediscovery of Greek scientific texts, both ancient and medieval, was accelerated as the
Byzantine Empire fell to the
Ottoman Turks and many
Byzantine scholars sought refuge in the West, particularly
Italy. Also, the invention of
printing was to have great effect on European society: the facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas.
But this initial period is usually seen as one of scientific backwardness. There were no new developments in physics or astronomy, and the reverence for classical sources further enshrined the
Aristotelian and
Ptolemaic views of the universe.
Humanism stressed that nature came to be viewed as an animate spiritual creation that wasn't governed by laws or mathematics. At the same time philosophy lost much of its rigour as the rules of
logic and deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion.
It wouldn't be until the Renaissance moved to Northern Europe that science would be revived, with such figures as
Copernicus,
Francis Bacon, and
Descartes (though Descartes is often described as an early
Enlightenment thinker, rather than a late Renaissance one).
Dark Ages?
The stereotype of the Middle Ages as a supposed "
Dark Age" is reflected in the popular views regarding the study of nature during the period. The contemporary historians of science
David Lindberg and
Ronald Numbers discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages was a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame of which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a
caricature. Contrary to common belief, Lindberg say that "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led. There was no warfare between science and the church". And
Edward Grant, writes: "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities".
For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the
19th century and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that the people from the
Middle Ages believed that the
Earth was flat. This claim is mistaken, as Lindberg and Numbers write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who didn't acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."
Great names of science in medieval Europe
Anthemius of Tralles (ca. 474 – ca. 534), a professor of geometry and architecture, authored many influential works on mathematics and was one of the architects of the famed
Hagia Sophia, the largest building in the world at its time. His works were among the most important source texts in the Arab world and Western Europe for centuries after.
John Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570), also known as
John the Grammarian, a Byzantine philosopher, launched a revolution in the understanding of physics by critiquing and correcting the earlier works of
Aristotle. In the process he proposed important concepts such as a rudimentary notion of
inertia and the invariant acceleration of falling objects. Although his works were repressed at various times in the Byzantine Empire, because of religious controversy, they'd nevertheless become important to the understanding of physics throughout Europe and the Arab world.
Paul of Aegina (ca. 625–ca. 690), considered by some to be the greatest Byzantine surgeon, developed many novel surgical techniques and authored the medical encyclopedia
Medical Compendium in Seven Books. The book on surgery in particular was the definitive treatise in Europe and the Islamic world for hundreds of years.
The Venerable Bede (ca. 672–735), monk of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow who wrote a work
On the Nature of Things, several books on the mathematical / astronomical subject of
computus, the most influential entitled
On the Reckoning of Time. He made original discoveries concerning the nature of the tides and his works on computus became required elements of the training of
clergy, and thus greatly influenced early medieval knowledge of the natural world.
Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 – 887), a
polymath and inventor in
Muslim Spain, made contributions in a variety of fields and is most known for his contributions to glass-making and aviation. He developed novel ways of manufacturing and using glass . He was also the first to attempt controlled flight by flying a primitive hang glider in 875 (the origin of the concept is often erroneously attributed to
Bacon or
da Vinci).
Pope Sylvester II (c. 946–1003), a scholar, teacher, mathematician, and later
pope, reintroduced the
abacus and
armillary sphere to Western Europe after they'd been lost for centuries following the
Greco-Roman era. He was also responsible in part for the spread of the
Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Western Europe.
Maslamah al-Majriti (d. 1008), a mathematician, astronomer, and chemist in
Muslim Spain, made novel contributions in many areas, from new techniques for surveying to updating and improving the astronomical tables of
al-Khwarizmi and inventing a process for producing
mercury oxide. He is most famous, though, for having helped transmit knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to Muslim Spain and Christian Western Europe.
Abulcasis (936 - 1013), a physician and scientist in
Muslim Spain, is considered to be the father of modern surgery. He wrote numerous medical texts, developed many innovative surgical instruments, and developed a variety of new surgical techniques and practices. His texts were considered the definitive works on surgery in Europe until the Renaissance.
Constantine the African (c. 1020–1087), a Christian native of
Carthage, is best known for his translating of ancient
Greek and
Roman medical texts from
Arabic into
Latin while working at the
Schola Medica Salernitana in
Salerno,
Italy. Among the works he translated were those of
Hippocrates and
Galen.
Arzachel (1028–1087), the foremost
astronomer of the early second millennium, lived in
Muslim Spain and greatly expanded the understanding and accuracy of planetary models and terrestrial measurements used for navigation. He developed key technologies including a latitude-independent
astrolabe.
Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253),
Bishop of Lincoln, was the central character of the
English intellectual movement in the first half of the
13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in
Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of
optics,
astronomy and
geometry. In his commentaries on Aristotle's scientific works, he affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences.
Roger Bacon was influenced by his work on optics and astronomy.
Albert the Great (1193–1280),
Doctor Universalis, was one of the most prominent representatives of the philosophical tradition emerging from the
Dominican Order. He is one of the thirty-three
Saints of the
Roman Catholic Church honored with the title of
Doctor of the Church. He became famous for his vast knowledge and for his defence of the pacific coexistence between science and religion. Albert was an essential figure in introducing Greek and Islamic science into the medieval universities, although not without hesitation with regard to particular Aristotelian theses. In one of his most famous sayings he asserted: "Science doesn't consist in ratifying what others say, but of searching for the causes of phenomena."
Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.
Roger Bacon (1214–94),
Doctor Admirabilis, joined the
Franciscan Order around
1240 where, influenced by Grosseteste, ibn Firnas and others, he dedicated himself to studies where he implemented the observation of nature and experimentation as the foundation of natural knowledge. Bacon was responsible for making the concept of "
laws of nature" widespread, and contributed in such areas as
mechanics,
geography and, most of all, optics.
The optical research of Grosseteste and Bacon made possible the beginning of the fabrication of
eyeglasses at the end of the
13th century. The same research would also prove invaluable for the later invention of such instruments as the
telescope and the
microscope.
Ibn al-Baitar (-1248), a botanist and pharmacist in
Muslim Spain, researched over 1400 types of plants, foods, and drugs and compiled pharmaceutical and medical encyclopedias documenting his research. These were used in the Islamic world and Europe until the 19th century.
Thomas Aquinas (1227–74),
Doctor Angelicus, was an
Italian theologian and friar in the
Dominican Order. As his mentor Albert the Great, he's a Catholic Saint and Doctor of the Church. His interests were not only in
philosophy; he was also interested in
alchemy, having written an important treatise titled
Aurora Consurgens. However, his greatest contribution to the scientific development of the period was having been mostly responsible for the incorporation of
Aristotelianism into the
Scholastic tradition, and in particular his
Commentary on Aristotle's Physics was responsible for developing one of the most important innovations in the history of physics, first posited by his mentor Averroes for celestial bodies only, namely the notion of the inertial resistant mass of all bodies universally, subsequently further developed by Kepler and Newton in the 17th century. (See Pierre Duhem's analysis
The 12th century birth of the notion of mass which advised modern mechanics. from his
Systeme Du Monde at
(External Link))
John Duns Scotus (1266–1308),
Doctor Subtilis, was a member of the
Franciscan Order, philosopher and theologian. Emerging from the academic environment of the
University of Oxford. where the presence of Grosseteste and Bacon was still palpable, he'd a different view on the relationship between
reason and
faith as that of Thomas Aquinas. For Duns Scotus, the truths of faith couldn't be comprehended through the use of reason. Philosophy, hence, shouldn't be a servant to theology, but act independently. He was the mentor of one of the greatest names of philosophy in the Middle Ages:
William of Ockham.
William of Ockham (1285–1350),
Doctor Invincibilis, was an
English Franciscan friar, philosopher,
logician and theologian. Ockham defended the principle of
parsimony, which could already be seen in the works of his mentor Duns Scotus. His principle later became known as
Occam's Razor and states that if there are various equally valid explanations for a fact, then the simplest one should be chosen. This became a foundation of what would come to be known as the
scientific method and one of the pilars of
reductionism in science. Ockham probably died of the
Black Plague.
Jean Buridan and
Nicole Oresme were his followers.
Jean Buridan (1300–58) was a
French philosopher and priest. Although he was one of the most famous and influent philosophers of the late Middle Ages, his work today isn't renowned by people other than philosophers and historians. One of his most significant contributions to science was the development of the
theory of Impetus, that explained the movement of projectiles and objects in
free-fall. This theory gave way to the
dynamics of
Galileo Galilei and for
Isaac Newton's famous principle of
Inertia.
Nicole Oresme (c. 1323–82) was an intellectual genius and perhaps the most original thinker of the
14th century. A theologian and
bishop of Lisieux, he was one of the principal propagators of the modern sciences. Notwithstanding his strictly scientific contributions, Oresme strongly opposed
astrology and speculated about the possibility of
extraterrestrial life. He was the last great European intellectual to live before the
Black Plague, an event that had a very negative impact in the intellectual life of the ending period of the Middle Ages.
Islamic world
Overview
In the
Middle East, Greek philosophy was able to find some short-lived support by the newly created
Islamic Caliphate (
Islamic Empire). With the spread of
Islam in the
7th and
8th centuries, a period of Islamic scholarship lasted until the
15th century. In the
Islamic World, the Middle Ages is known as the
Islamic Golden Age, when Islamic civilization and Islamic scholarship flourished. This scholarship was aided by several factors. The use of a single language,
Arabic, allowed communication without need of a translator. Translations of
Greek texts from
Egypt and the
Byzantine Empire, and
Sanskrit texts from
India, provided Islamic scholars a knowledge base to build upon. In addition, there was the
Hajj. This annual
pilgrimage to
Makkah facilitated scholarly collaboration by bringing together people and new ideas from all over the Islamic world.
In earlier Islamic versions of the
scientific method,
ethics played an important role. Islamic scholars used previous work in medicine, astronomy and mathematics as bedrock to develop new fields like
alchemy. In mathematics, the Islamic scholar Muhammad ibn Musa
al-Khwarizmi gave his name to what we now call an
algorithm, and the word
algebra is derived from
al-jabr, the beginning of the name of one of his publications in which he developed a system of solving quadratic equations. Researchers like
Al-Batani (
850-
929) contributed to the fields of
astronomy and
mathematics and
Al-Razi to
chemistry. Examples of fruits of these contributions can be seen in
Damascus steel (
wootz steel). Arab alchemy proved to be an inspiration to
Roger Bacon, and later to
Isaac Newton. Also in astronomy, Al-Batani improved the measurements of
Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of the Greek
Hè Megalè Syntaxis (
the great treatise) translated as
Almagest. About
900, Al-Batani improved the
precision of the measurement of the
precession of the earth's axis, thus continuing a millennium's legacy of
measurements in his own land (
Babylonia and
Chaldea- the area now known as
Iraq).
Scientific method
Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on
experiment than had the
Greeks. This led to the modern
scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on
optics from
circa 1000, in his
Book of Optics. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally
empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of
light. Some have also described Ibn al-Haytham as the "first
scientist" for his development of the modern scientific method.
Rosanna Gorini writes:
Robert Briffault wrote in
The Making of Humanity:
Alchemy and chemistry
Muslim
chemists and
alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern
chemistry. Scholars such as
Will Durant and
Alexander von Humboldt regard Muslim chemists to be the founders of chemistry. In particular,
Geber is regarded as the "father of chemistry". The works of Arab chemists influenced
Roger Bacon (who introduced the empirical method to Europe, strongly influenced by his reading of Arabic writers), and later
Isaac Newton. The
Persian scholar
Al-Razi also contributed to chemistry.
Astronomy
In
astronomy,
Al-Battani improved the measurements of
Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of the Greek
Hè Megalè Syntaxis (
The great treatise) translated as
Almagest. Al-Battani also improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the earth's axis. The corrections made to the
geocentric model by Al-Battani,
Averroes,
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,
Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi and
Ibn al-Shatir were later incorporated into the
Copernican heliocentric model.
Heliocentric theories were also discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as
Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said Sinjari,
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and 'Umar al-Katibi al-
Qazwini.
Mathematics
In
mathematics, the
Persian mathematician
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the concept of the
algorithm, while the term
algebra is derived from
al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. What is now known as
Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of
decimal point notation.
Sabian mathematician
Al-Battani (850-929) also contributed to astronomy and mathematics.
Medicine
Muslim
physicians made many significant contributions to
medicine, including
anatomy,
experimental medicine,
ophthalmology,
pathology, the
pharmaceutical sciences,
physiology,
surgery, etc. They also set up some of the earliest dedicated
hospitals, including the first
medical schools and
psychiatric hospitals.
Al-Kindi wrote the
De Gradibus, in which he first demonstrated the application of
quantification and mathematics to medicine and pharmacology, such as a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of
drugs and the determination in advance of the most critical days of a patient's illness.
Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis) helped lay the foudations for modern
surgery, with his
Kitab al-Tasrif, in which he invented numerous
surgical instruments.
Avicenna helped lay the foundations for modern
medicine, with
The Canon of Medicine, which was responsible for introducing systematic
experimentation and
quantification in
physiology, and the introduction of
experimental medicine and
clinical trials.
Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) was the earliest known
experimental surgeon.
Ibn al-Nafis laid the foundations for
circulatory physiology, as he was the first to describe the
pulmonary circulation and
coronary circulation.
Other advances
Many other advances were made by Muslim scientists in
biology (
botany,
evolution, and
zoology),
mathematics (
algebra,
arithmetic,
calculus,
geometry,
mathematical induction,
number theory, and
trigonometry),
alchemy and
chemistry, the
earth sciences (
anthropology,
cartography,
geodesy,
geography, and
geology),
physics (
optics,
mechanics, and
motion),
psychology (
experimental psychology,
psychiatry,
psychophysics, and
psychotherapy), and the
social sciences (
demography,
history,
historiography, and
sociology).
Some of the most famous scientists from the Islamic world include
Geber (
polymath, father of
chemistry),
al-Farabi (polymath),
Abu al-Qasim/Abulcasis (father of modern
surgery),
Ibn al-Haytham (
universal genius, father of
optics, founder of
psychophysics and
experimental psychology, pioneer of
scientific method, "first
scientist"),
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (universal genius, father of
Indology and
geodesy, "first
anthropologist"),
Avicenna (universal genius, father of
momentum and modern
medicine),
Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (polymath), and
Ibn Khaldun (father of
demography,
cultural history,
historiography, the
philosophy of history,
sociology, and the
social sciences), among many others.
India
Physics
Prior to the Middle Ages, Indian philosophers in
ancient India developed
atomic theories, which included formulating ideas about the
atom in a systematic manner and propounding ideas about the atomic constitution of the material world. The
principle of relativity was also available in an early embryonic form in the Indian philosophical concept of "
sapekshavad". The literal translation of this
Sanskrit word is "
theory of relativity" (not to be confused with Einstein's
theory of relativity).
Alchemy and metallurgy
By the beginning of the Middle Ages, the
wootz,
crucible and
stainless steels were invented in India. The
spinning wheel used for
spinning thread or
yarn from fibrous material such as
wool or
cotton was invented in the early Middle Ages. By the end of the Middle Ages,
iron rockets were developed in the
kingdom of Mysore in
South India.
Astronomy
The mathematician and astronomer
Aryabhata in
499 propounded a
heliocentric solar system of
gravitation where he presented astronomical and mathematical theories in which the Earth was taken to be spinning on its axis and the
periods of the planets were given as
elliptical orbits with respect to the sun. He also believed that the moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight and that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He carried out accurate calculations of astronomical constants based on this system, such as the periods of the planets, the
circumference of the
earth, the
solar eclipse and
lunar eclipse, the time taken for a single rotation of the Earth on its axis, the length of earth's revolution around the sun, and the longitudes of planets.
In the
7th century,
Brahmagupta briefly described the
law of gravitation, and recognized
gravity as a force of attraction.
The
Siddhanta Shiromani was a mathematical astronomy text written by
Bhaskara in the
12th century. The 12 chapters of the first part cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of the planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The second part contains thirteen chapters on the sphere. It covers topics such as: praise of study of the sphere; nature of the sphere; cosmography and geography; planetary mean motion; eccentric epicyclic model of the planets; the armillary sphere;
spherical trigonometry; ellipse calculations; first visibilities of the planets; calculating the lunar crescent; astronomical instruments; the seasons; and problems of astronomical calculations.
Mathematics
Aryabhata introduced a number of
trigonometric functions (including
sine,
versine,
cosine and inverse sine),
trigonometric tables, and techniques and
algorithms of
algebra.
Arabic translations of his texts were available in the
Islamic world by the
8th-
10th century.
Brahmagupta lucidly explained the use of
zero as both a
placeholder and a
decimal digit, along with the
Hindu-Arabic numerals now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of his texts (around
770) introduced this number system to the Islamic world, where it was adapted as
Arabic numerals.
Islamic scholars carried knowledge of this number system to
Europe by the
10th century and it has now displaced all older number systems throughout the world.
From the
12th century,
Bhaskara,
Madhava, and various
Kerala School mathematicians first conceived of
mathematical analysis,
differential calculus, concepts of
integral calculus,
infinite series,
power series,
Taylor series,
trigonometric series,
floating point numbers, and many other concepts foundational to the overall development of
calculus and analysis.
China
Theory and hypothesis
As Toby E. Huff notes, pre-modern Chinese science developed precariously without solid
scientific theory, while there was a lacking of consistent systemic treatment in comparison to contemporaneous European works such as the
Concordance and Discordant Canons by
Gratian of
Bologna (fl. 12th century). This drawback to Chinese science was lamented even by the mathematician
Yang Hui (1238–1298), who criticized earlier mathematicians such as
Li Chunfeng (602–670) who were content with using methods without working out their theoretical origins or principle, stating:
The men of old changed the name of their methods from problem to problem, so that as no specific explanation was given, there's no way of telling their theoretical origin or basis.
Despite this, Chinese thinkers of the Middle Ages proposed some hypotheses which are in accordance with modern principles of science. Yang Hui provided theoretical proof for the proposition that the complements of the
parallelograms which are about the diameter of any given parallelogram are equal to one another. Shen believed that rays of sunlight refracted before reaching the surface of the earth, hence the appearance of the observed sun from earth didn't match its exact location. Shen supported and expanded upon beliefs earlier proposed by
Han Dynasty (202 BCE–202 CE) scholars such as
Jing Fang (78–37 BCE) and
Zhang Heng (78–139 CE) that
lunar eclipse occurs when the earth obstructs the sunlight traveling towards the moon, a
solar eclipse is the moon's obstruction of sunlight reaching earth, the moon is spherical like a ball and not flat like a disc, and moonlight is merely sunlight reflected from the moon's surface. Shen also explained that the observance of a full moon occurred when the sun's light was slanting at a certain degree and that cresent
phases of the moon proved that the moon was spherical, using a metaphor of observing different angles of a silver ball with white powder thrown onto one side. It should be noted that, although the Chinese accepted the idea of spherical-shaped heavenly bodies, the concept of a
spherical earth (as opposed to a
flat earth) wasn't accepted in Chinese thought until the works of Italian Jesuit
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and Chinese astronomer
Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) in the early 17th century.
Pharmacology
There were noted advances in
Traditional Chinese medicine during the Middle Ages.
Emperor Gaozong (r. 649–683) of the
Tang Dynasty (618–907) commissioned the scholarly compilation of a
materia medica in 657 that documented 833 medicinal substances taken from stones, minerals, metals, plants, herbs, animals, vegetables, fruits, and cereal crops. In his
Bencao Tujing ('Illustrated Pharmacopoeia'), the scholar-official
Su Song (1020–1101) not only systematically categorized
herbs and
minerals according to their pharmaceutical uses, but he also took an interest in
zoology. For example, Su made systematic descriptions of animal species and the environmental regions they could be found, such as the freshwater
crab Eriocher sinensis found in the
Huai River running through
Anhui, in waterways near
the capital city, as well as reservoirs and marshes of
Hebei.
Horology and clockworks
Although the
Bencao Tujing was an important pharmaceutical work of the age, Su Song is perhaps better known for his work in
horology. His book
Xinyi Xiangfayao (新儀象法要; lit. 'Essentials of a New Method for Mechanizing the Rotation of an Armillary Sphere and a Celestial Globe') documented the intricate mechanics of his
astronomical clock tower in
Kaifeng. This included the use of an
escapement mechanism and world's first known
chain drive to power the rotating
armillary sphere crowning the top as well as the 133 clock jack figurines positioned on a rotating wheel that
sounded the hours by banging drums, clashing gongs, striking bells, and holding plaques with special announcements appearing from open-and-close shutter windows. While it had been Zhang Heng who applied the first
motive power to the armillary sphere via
hydraulics in 125 CE, it was
Yi Xing (683–727) in 725 CE who first applied an escapement mechanism to a water-powered celestial globe and stiking clock. The early Song Dynasty horologist
Zhang Sixun (fl. late 10th century) employed
liquid mercury in his astronomical clock because there were complaints that water would freeze too easily in the clepsydra tanks during winter.
Archaeology
During the early half of the
Song Dynasty (960–1279), the study of
archaeology developed out of the
antiquarian interests of the
