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Old Islamic Tile Patterns Show Modern Math Insight
arbitraryaardvark writes "Reuters reports that medieval Muslims made a mega math marvel. Tile patterns on middle eastern mosques display a kind of quasicrystalline effect that was unknown in the west until rediscovered by Penrose in the 1970s. 'Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.' It isn't known if the mosque designers understood the math behind the patterns or not."
It seems fairly self important to assume that they didn't understand the math behind the tiles. They generated them, didn't they? Islamic culture was well considered to be centuries ahead of Europe during that time period. They had access to some of the ancient Greek writings that Europe only rediscovered years later. My question is, and I don't mean to troll, what happened? From my perspective, it seems that many people almost disdain the idea of progress in culture and arts now.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
I have an ongoing debate with a friend who is both a philosopher of science and a mathematics teacher.
..
Suffice it to say that I wish he had taugh me mathematics (and algebra, geometry, calculus) rather than the teachers I had
One of the things that come up in our discussions is the idea the the Ancient Egyptians knew about PHI and PI - as can be seen from the structure of their architecture - and that the builders of Stonehenge also had working knowledge of trigonometry.
But as a mathematician - he denies that the there was any knowledge of "mathematics" because the principles were never described "mathematically" - just used in an "intuitive way".
"Without the maths", he said, "You can't argue that they understood the maths" and, he continued, "if they never expressed their finding in mathematical terms (i.e. in formulas with proofs) - then it isn't maths anyway - its just architecture"
"If we generalize this to the field of anthropology, it might explain our modern astonishment at finding more evidence of intelligence and intention in our ancestors the closer we look... The Ice-Man's tattoo of acupuncture therapy is one example."
It's not so much astonishment, but an ingrained prejudice that renders many people incapable of accepting the fact that ancient peoples were _not_ less intelligent than us. It's therefore easier for them to believe that Atlanteans (who are inevitably portrayed as being white!) or aliens were responsible for gigantic and impressive structures from thousands of years ago than what they think of as "a bunch of ignorant wogs who didn't have TV and cars". Furthermore, the fact that (for example) the ruins of ancient Zimbabwe were attributed to Phoenicians, Hebrews, lost tribes of white men, etc., etc., because "darkies" were incapable of such architectural feats shows that archaeologists and anthropologists haven't always been immune to cultural prejudices.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Others have already posted to your comment so I will keep it short. First of all, no civilization was wiped out when Moors where removed from Spain, what happened was the removal of governing Muslim elite and replacing it with a christian king and nobles. What stayed the same were the peoples, their language and their habits and culture which in any case were there before Moor conquers. It should be noted that civilization, religion, nation, language i.e. don't mean the same thing. Civilization can be mix of many religions, nations, languages i.e. that are bond together. In Spain, the majority of people where Christians, they spoke the same language and had similar habits, which in later terms made them a nation that can be counted to western civilization.
Also on a note Europe and western powers made a rise because of their highly organized states and armies, more evolved banking and finance sectors, appraisal for knowledge and education and on a later date ability harness finance&scientific knowledge to serve industrialization. This was which raised western civilization from the drain. You also note that christian societies have attempted to control and dominate Islamic societies, but you forget that in 19th and 20th century the focus of European imperial powers was to control and dominate the whole world, not just Muslims. And before that if you make a note about crusades, you should understand that crusades were an attempt to take back old christian lands from Muslim conquers. In the view of these, there isn't any grand christian plot to suppress Muslims as you try to suggest.
Also on a note when you say that the socially mobile tend to follow the ways of a dominant power, you should also understand than in previous times there were no immigration. When Europe and west started to raise, that didn't succumb able part of other cultures to Europe because there still was religion, language and ethnic barriers. What we have seen in Islamic societies in middle east, in last 1000 years are the effects on what it does when the leading elite doesn't embrace trade, banking, formal organization of government, formalization of armies, science, knowledge and education of masses. What happened to Islamic civilization was not that it failed in absolute terms, it just didn't keep up with the rest and thus in 18th and 19th centuries was very much behind western world.
Just to give you example on what I am discussing in practical terms. In example in Finland Mikael Agricola, a priest, formed the Finnish written language in 16th century which teaching was started even to the simple masses. Of course the literature rate didn't rise quickly, but in time of several centuries it made quite big part of Finnish able to read and write, which in turn made possible to further educate more and more people. Also in western Europe kings and nobles started to understand the practically of stable banking and finance sectors and in time became more tolerant and took more responsibilities to pay their debts and not just wipe out debts to bankers. The fact that western civilization got first to industrial revolution and later on became first modern and birth cradle for global civilization is nothing to do with suppressing or exploiting other civilizations, it's everything to do on using own strengths and continues building and evolution of everything in societies.
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>Algebra comes from the "Al-jabr" the Arabic word for reunion
IIRC, algebra was like the 'Arabic numerals' (which other posters have mentioned) in that it came to the Arabs through trade with India.
Then, thanks to the Arabs, algebra was developed and preserved, and then communicated to the West. Then, when the British colonized India, they presumably set up schools that taught the subject... (Funny, these circles).
Algebra survived because the societies that understood it stayed in contact with one another; this was necessary in order for it to spread. Knowledge get passed around -- and each society that holds the baton for a bit tends to add something useful to it.
Moral of the story: extroverted societies learn more; xenophobia hurts knowledge.