Talk:Ya'qub ibn Tariq

Distance to the sun
The article says that "Biruni tabulated ibn Tāriq's estimate for the greatest distance between the Earth and the Sun as 8,000 times the Earth radius" giving a translation of al-Biruni's Indica as a reference. But that text gives 8,000 as the figure for the distance to Mars, not to the Sun. The figures given there for the distance to the Sun are in the range of approx. 1,100 to approx. 2,100. I don't have any other sources to hand to check on this right now, but I'll see what I can dig up, especially given the additional claim that this was "the largest known estimate for the astronomical unit up until that time": I have the impression that al-Biruni made a separate determination of this figure, which this claim might be referring to? –Syncategoremata (talk) 13:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Planetary diameters
I expanded the discussion of ibn Tariq's estimates of planetary diameters to give his estimates for the diameters of the other celestial bodies. I also removed the comparison of his figures with modern measurements. The reason for this is that, as only two different diameters appear (one four times the other), these diameters would appear to come from his cosmographical theory, and not from experiment. Indeed even his estimate for the diameter of the Moon is wildly inaccurate, although it was roughly known at the time. So, it seems misleading to say that he got the diameter of Jupiter and Saturn almost right, when it looks to be just a numerical coincidence. Spacepotato (talk) 04:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for looking at this: I had started but became distracted. Your analysis here matches (but far improves on) what I had been groping towards when I was trying to work out what was going with his figures.
 * All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 20:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Curious where this article stands
I was looking at this article and I noticed it has a lot of room for improvement. However, I was wanting to ask about the cause of the number of gaps. Is it a matter of not enough people working on it, or is it a matter of everyone having trouble finding sources that actually discuss the topic? Albkvz (talk) 16:27, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I had also noticed quite a few of the sources are very old, two of which being from 1870 and 1900, respectively. I think the Journal of Near Eastern studies might also be worth looking into to find more recent published articles. Would it be possible to restructure the citation section to have more specific citations? 131.151.252.124 (talk) 16:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)