{"title":"Mathematical Philology in the Treatise on Double False Position in an Arabic Manuscript at Columbia University","authors":"A. Roberts","doi":"10.1163/24519197-bja10007","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nThis article examines an Arabic mathematical manuscript at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (or. 45), focusing on a previously unpublished set of texts: the treatise on the mathematical method known as Double False Position, as supplemented by Jābir ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī (tenth century?), and the commentaries by Aḥmad ibn al-Sarī (d. 548/1153–4) and Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamadhānī (12th/13th century?), the latter previously unnoticed. The article sketches the contents of the manuscript, then offers an editio princeps, translation, and analysis of the treatise. It then considers how the Swiss historian of mathematics Heinrich Suter (1848–1922) read Jābir’s treatise (as contained in a different manuscript) before concluding with my own proposal for how to go about reading this mathematical text: as a witness of multiple stages of a complex textual tradition of teaching, extending, and rethinking mathematics—that is, we should read it philologically.","PeriodicalId":36525,"journal":{"name":"Philological Encounters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/24519197-bja10007","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Philological Encounters","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24519197-bja10007","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This article examines an Arabic mathematical manuscript at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (or. 45), focusing on a previously unpublished set of texts: the treatise on the mathematical method known as Double False Position, as supplemented by Jābir ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī (tenth century?), and the commentaries by Aḥmad ibn al-Sarī (d. 548/1153–4) and Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamadhānī (12th/13th century?), the latter previously unnoticed. The article sketches the contents of the manuscript, then offers an editio princeps, translation, and analysis of the treatise. It then considers how the Swiss historian of mathematics Heinrich Suter (1848–1922) read Jābir’s treatise (as contained in a different manuscript) before concluding with my own proposal for how to go about reading this mathematical text: as a witness of multiple stages of a complex textual tradition of teaching, extending, and rethinking mathematics—that is, we should read it philologically.
本文研究了哥伦比亚大学珍本和手稿图书馆的阿拉伯语数学手稿。45),重点关注以前未发表的一组文本:关于被称为双重错误位置的数学方法的论文,由Jābir ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī(10世纪?)补充,以及Aḥmad ibn al- sari (d. 548/ 1154 - 4)和Sa ' d al- d n as ' ad ibn Sa ' d al-Hamadhānī(12 /13世纪?)的评论,后者以前未被注意到。文章概述了手稿的内容,然后提供了一个版本的原则,翻译和论文的分析。然后,它考虑了瑞士数学历史学家海因里希·苏特(1848-1922)如何阅读Jābir的论文(包含在另一份手稿中),然后以我自己的建议结束:作为教学,扩展和重新思考数学的复杂文本传统的多个阶段的见证人,也就是说,我们应该从语言学的角度来阅读它。