Physics & Chemistry

Physics

The Islamic people created a ‘magical gadget’ called the Astrolabe. It is a tool that’s used for solving problems that involve the positions of the sun and stars and time. They can also be used for navigation, timekeeping and astronomy. It was created around 200 BC, and was then introduced to Islamic scholars who used the instrument and created many texts based on it.
The Astrolabe is constructed of a hollow disk (mater) which can hold several disks known as ‘tympans’. Each one is made and positioned for specific latitude. The ‘rete’ is an actual map of the stars and the alidade is attached on the back which measures a stars altitude.

The Muslims created one of the most important papers known to astronomy called the Az-Zayj As-Saabi’ee. This book was translated into Latin in the 12^th century. This book included the altitude of the North Pole and planets, length of the solar year, the ephemeris (A table that gives the calculated positions of a celestial object at regular intervals) of planets and moons and the ascension of the zodiacs. All of these are shown in clear mathematical tables.

Muslims translated many astronomical books from other civilizations and then corrected and edited them. Modern astronomers agree that there results are of great significance to science. Such things include calculating that the Earth is oval shaped, the distances of planets from the centre of the Earth, coloured maps of the night sky with positions of over a thousand stars, solar calendars and also created the world’s first ‘camera’. It was a box coated in black and a hole in one side.

Probably one of the greatest Islamic astronomers was Al-Khwarizmi who invented algebra. He did not use mathematical expressions but completely in words based on the Arab numerical system. Hundreds of years later his work was translated into Latin which was then introduced to Europe along with the concept of 0.