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Mediaeval Muslims made stunning math breakthrough
Scotsman ^ | 22-Feb-07 | Will Dunham

Posted on 02/22/2007 6:15:51 PM PST by xcamel

click here to read article


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Now, don't go all goofy - this is real history, and arabic math predates mo-ham-head by at least 500 years, even though this article talks most about post 700 AD
1 posted on 02/22/2007 6:15:54 PM PST by xcamel
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To: xcamel
Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in mediaeval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday.

What they failed to say was their societal development and progress stopped right there.....

2 posted on 02/22/2007 6:18:03 PM PST by edpc (Watch this space)
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To: xcamel

Yep. The birth of Mohamhead signaled the long slow death of arab civilization.


3 posted on 02/22/2007 6:18:19 PM PST by cripplecreek (Peace without victory is a temporary illusion.)
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG ping


4 posted on 02/22/2007 6:19:44 PM PST by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: cripplecreek
if you scrible long enough.....
5 posted on 02/22/2007 6:21:29 PM PST by hotaxe (Conservative...and loving it!)
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To: xcamel

The southwestern Asian (Middle Eastern) part of the world did contribute a lot to global society. Just because some people can do bad things (be they Muslims, Nazis, Communists, etc.), they still can make contributions to science and society.


6 posted on 02/22/2007 6:21:44 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail?)
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To: cripplecreek

OK class if you have 10 infidels and you behead 8 how many infidels are left?


7 posted on 02/22/2007 6:22:37 PM PST by JOHANNES801 (I have no tag line, cause I say nasty things.)
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To: xcamel

Sadly, modern Muslims would blow up these buildings and behead the artists and architects who created them.


8 posted on 02/22/2007 6:22:48 PM PST by CFC__VRWC (Go Gators! NCAA Football and Basketball Champions!)
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To: xcamel

Oh, it's true. Islamic culture was the pinnacle of advancement circa 1400s. The problem is that it remained mired in the 15th century due to it's 7th century outlook on the world. And it is what grinds them so much now as they see how far they've fallen behind the infidels. The fundamentalists belive that is Allah's punishment for them straying away from the 'true' faith, hence their ebrace of radical theology. Our prosperity, culture and civilization is an affront to their view of themselves.


9 posted on 02/22/2007 6:23:27 PM PST by farlander (Strategery - sure beats liberalism!)
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To: xcamel
...quasicrystalline...

I remember Crazy Crystals from the nineteen thirties and forties. I thought they were just another scam.

10 posted on 02/22/2007 6:23:31 PM PST by FreePaul
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To: xcamel

Once they started focusing on converting the world to Islam, at pain of death, they began their own destruction. If it wasn't for the infidel they wouldn't have the technology and knowledge to drill for oil.


11 posted on 02/22/2007 6:23:52 PM PST by nycgal
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To: xcamel

So, civilization took their Numeric system and math, and left the rest. I am sure there were a few other things that we adopted but math seems to be their biggest contribution to civilization.


12 posted on 02/22/2007 6:24:18 PM PST by aliquando (A Scout is T, L, H, F, C, K, O, C, T, B, C, and R.)
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To: JOHANNES801

Taliban math would suggest that there are two infidels left and they would be forced to behead each other.


13 posted on 02/22/2007 6:24:27 PM PST by cripplecreek (Peace without victory is a temporary illusion.)
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To: xcamel; blam; SunkenCiv

ping. Another freeper already put ggg in the keyword place, so if you already saw this article.....sorry.


14 posted on 02/22/2007 6:24:54 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail?)
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To: xcamel

It's known that Islamic society did have an enlightened period many centuries ago. Based on what we see now, it's unlikely that they ever will have one again.


15 posted on 02/22/2007 6:25:11 PM PST by Clintonfatigued (If the GOP were to stop worshiping Free Trade as if it were a religion, they'd win every election)
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To: xcamel
Joshua Socolar, a Duke university physicist, said it is unclear whether the mediaeval Islamic artisans fully understood the mathematical properties of the patterns they were making.

Well, it's clear they didn't. Anyone who says differently better be able to come up with the arabic manuscripts that show otherwise. They got lucky. They had craftsmen and tradesmen doing tilings for centuries. They were interested in it -- as a trade. Not as mathematics. Most likely they copied something they saw in nature, or something they saw in nature gave them the idea. They might have even stolen it from India, as they did many other things. Islamo-arabic culture invents nothing, contributes nothing, discovers nothing. It's a primitive, backward, stagnant, as dead culture.

16 posted on 02/22/2007 6:26:14 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: farlander

And yet having a great civilization in the past can help give incentive to strive for a great civilization in the future. China (chiefly the PRC) and India look at their powerful pasts, and then--somewhat smugly--toward the future.


17 posted on 02/22/2007 6:28:16 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail?)
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To: edpc

"Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in mediaeval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday."

By hiring and working alongside Byzanitine designers and craftsmen.


18 posted on 02/22/2007 6:28:21 PM PST by combat_boots (The MSM: State run Democrat media masquerading as corporations)
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To: xcamel
Not 100% sure, but this may be the pattern in question (just how many geometric designs on how many tombs ARE there in Maragha, Iran?)


19 posted on 02/22/2007 6:29:11 PM PST by Alter Kaker
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To: LibWhacker

They had zero inventions.


20 posted on 02/22/2007 6:29:52 PM PST by gotribe (There's still time to begin a war in Iraq.)
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