Inventing tradition in 16th- and 17th-century mathematical sciences: Abraham as teacher of arithmetic and astronomy

DOI10.1007/S00283-015-9562-9MaRDI QIDQ906030zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Volker R. Remmert

Publication date 29 January 2016

Published in The Mathematical Intelligencer (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-015-9562-9

zbMATH Keywords

16th- and 17th-century opinions and ideasabout the creation of astronomy, natural sciences and mathematics due to the biblical Abraham, Adam and Sethphotographs, pictures and paintings

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of Egyptian mathematics (01A16) History of Babylonian mathematics (01A17) History of mathematics in the 15th and 16th centuries, Renaissance (01A40) History of mathematics in the 17th century (01A45)

Review text

This is a short paper on the opinions and ideas, living in the 16th and 17th centuries, on the creation of sciences in the broad sense of the word, descending via the biblical Abraham, Adam and Seth, and the like. It is somewhat difficult to describe here details of the paper. Therefore, the reader is recommended to read the paper for himself. Please do note the pictures in the paper: 1) Chronica regia coloniensis: Adam and Seth with the two columns representing geometry and astronomy (second half of the 12th century); 2) Cornelis Cort: Arithmetic, 1565 (Exhibition catalogue: Cornelis Cort, ed. M. Sellink, Museum Boijmans-van Beuringen, Rotterdam 1994); 3) Antonio Zanchi: Abramo insegna l'astrologia agli Egizi; 4) Jost Bürgi: Equation clock, 1591 (view [\textit{K. Gaulke}, ``Perfect in every sense. Scientific iconography on an equation clock by Jost Bürgi and the self-understanding of the astronomers at the Kassel court in the late 1580s, Nuncius, J. Material Visual Hist. Sci. 30, No. 1, 37--74 (2015; \url{doi:10.1163/18253911-03001003}), p. 39]). 5) detail of 4); view [loc. cit., p. 50].

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Cited in

(1)

• On picturing the past: arithmetic and geometry as wings of the mind

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