User:Matthew.C.Martin/Nicolaus Copernicus

While Copernicus Studied in Italy

Copernicus actually had many foreign influences that aided his discovery of how the Sun was the center of the Solar System. One of the major influences was Ibn al-Shatir, and the other being Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Each had their own mathematical inventions and formulas that would end up helping Copernicus with his eventual discoveries.

It starts a little earlier with a man named Khafri. He was exemplary at mathematics and astronomy so that mathematics became the new language for astronomy. Ibn al‐Shaṭir was the most distinguished Muslim astronomer of the 14th century.[1] Ibn al-Shatir used the Aristotelian Cosmology Model as a basis for his work. Adding emphasis to the Aristotelian Model, cosmological requirements of abolishing eccentrics astronomical models cumbersome multiplicity of shapes and forms unified all planetary models with one geocentric format.[2] Ibn al-Shatir could easily have it applied to one planet at a time by changing epicyclic spheres in each model.[3] Through that, it could be transferred into Heliocentric Models. The difference? It wasn’t considered to be compatible with Aristotelian Cosmology.

This slowly paved the way for someone like Copernicus which would aide his later discovery. All Copernicus had to do was put the Sun in a fixed position in any of al-Shatir’s models and allow Earth’s sphere along/together with the other planetary spheres and have them revolve around the Sun instead.

Unfortunately, there were some drastic consequences within the Islamic Civilizations that took place and slowed the scientific progress. Nevertheless, Islamic science endured. During this time, astronomers exposed factual errors in Greek Astronomy. Islamic astronomers in a rather convincing way, demonstrated inconsistencies of astronomy in its own cosmological presumptions.[4] It was, however, a very common practice to attempt to disprove Greek Astronomy. Another Greek, Ptolemy, constructed his own planetary models.

Copernicus had likely read all these commentaries while in Italy. It isn’t well known, but the Islamic World and Europeans most definitely had connections with each other. What started happening was Islamic Astronomy had become so good that its knowledge had started spreading out and reaching new lands and other domains.[5] Gregory Chioniades, a Byzantine Astronomer would actually travel to Islamic lands to learn the latest developments.[6] It was a very common practice amongst European Astronomers that others did the same. The terminology in their works proves it was derived from Arabic sources, which also was derived from classical Greek texts, such as Ptolemy.[7]

Copernicus would have read this in Italy despite the Byzantine Empire is more closely relatable to modern day Greece and Turkey. During the Ottomans siege and conquest of Constantinople, Byzantine scholars fled west with as many books and manuscripts etc.… as they could carry with them.[8] What ended up happening as a result was Arabic and Persian texts would assimilate and then be translated into Latin, one of the languages Copernicus happened to know. Recently, F. J. Ragep has found that the work of ‘Ali Qushji (d. 1474), an astronomer in the Ottoman Empire, was relevant for understanding Copernicus’s transformation of a geocentric system into a heliocentric one.[9]

Around the same time, travelers from Europe would routinely visit the Holy Lands and learn what they could and bring back some of this newly found knowledge from the Middle East to their respective European countries.[10] This lead to advanced theoretical works being brought to Renaissance Europe. European scientists would then learn and absorb this new knowledge and incorporate it into their own personal works, with Copernicus being one of them. Although Copernicus did acknowledge some astronomers from the Islamic world, none of them was later than Al-Bitruji (1200).[11] Copernicus mentioned Bitruji once in De revolutionibus, regarding the placement of Venus and Mercury with respect to the sun.[12] But since there is a consensus that Copernicus relied on the work of Regiomontanus (d. 1476), though he did not actually mention Regiomontanus by name, the issue of other uncited sources for Copernicus’s work remains.[13]   Further connections between Renaissance Europe and the Islamic World was discovered by Otto Neugebauer.

In 1957, Otto Neugebauer was in the midst of research when stumbling upon his discovery. Despite not knowing how to read Arabic, it wouldn’t be required in his case, as it wouldn’t take a genius to figure this out. What he discovered was the Ibn al-Shatir 1375 Lunar Model was extremely identical to Copernicus’ 1543 Lunar Model.[14] “Ibn al‐Shaṭir compiled a set of tables displaying the values of certain spherical astronomical functions relating to the times of prayer. The latitude used for these tables was 34 degrees, corresponding to an unspecified locality just north of Damascus. These tables display such functions as the duration of morning and evening twilight and the time of the afternoon prayer, as well as standard spherical astronomical functions.”[15]

Also in 1957, Victor Roberts presented a striking set of correspondences between the celebrated moon model first presented by Copernicus in the Commentariolus, before 1514, and the moon model developed more than a century earlier by the head timekeeper of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Ibn al‐Shatir (1304-76).[16] Roberts’ 1957 article established that Copernicus’ moon model had the same structure as Ibn al‐Shatir’s. A single correspondence like this might have been dismissed as surprising but happenstance.[17]

Otto Neugebauer then passed his knowledge on to Edward Kennedy, who then passed his knowledge on to Victor Roberts, who is known for writing “The Solar and Lunar Theory of Ibn al-Shatir: A pre-Copernican Copernican Model.”[18] It was a popular opinion that Europeans and The Islamic World had almost no contact. It was through Neugebauer’s discovery that no one expected such a close connection between the two. It was astonishing to Neugebauer to find a direct connection between Copernicus and the Islamic World, from someone who lived nearly 200-300 years before Copernicus.

Fascinated by this discovery, Neugebauer continued searching for more similarities. Why looking more deeply into Renaissance Scientists works, he came across Tadhkira fi’ilm al-hay’a, a work translated into French, which was originally written in 1260-61 by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.[19] He is most notably known for the Tusi Couple, a famous mathematical theorem.

It was proposed in an earlier text, Tahrir al-Majisti (Almagest in Latin) by Tusi as well.[20] In planetary theory, Al-Tūsī sought to reform the Ptolemaic system by correcting its inconsistencies, in particular its violations of the fundamental principle of uniform circular motion for heavenly bodies.[21] For this purpose, he especially set forth an astronomical device (known among the historians as the Tūsī-couple) that consisted of two circles, the smaller of which was, internally, tangent to the other that was twice as large. The smaller rotated twice as fast as the larger and in the opposite direction.[22]

It has been more than 60 years since the presentation of the first compelling evidence that the mathematical models in Copernicus’ De revolutionibus were based on the work of Islamic predecessors.[23] We should remember here that the myth of Copernicus as a lone genius is dependent in part on exactly the mathematical models at issue here, which were unknown to his northern European audience.[24]

Copernicus went on to use these lunar and planetary models for his later discoveries. By using the lunar model and testing the lunar cycles, as well as with planetary cycles. All Copernicus really had to do was ask “Why don’t we see anything rotating around the Sun?” Then set out to find such answers, and the rest is history. [1] King, David A, “Ibn al‐Shāṭir: ʿAlāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm,” Springer, 2007, https://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Ibn_al-Shatir_BEA.htm

[2] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 193

[3] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 193

[4] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 194

[5] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 194

[6] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 194

[7]   George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 194

[8] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 195

[9] Robert Morrison, A Scholarly Intermediary between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe, (The University of Chicago Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675550

[10] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 195

[11] Robert Morrison, A Scholarly Intermediary between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe, (The University of Chicago Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675550

[12] Robert Morrison, A Scholarly Intermediary between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe, (The University of Chicago Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675550

[13] Robert Morrison, A Scholarly Intermediary between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe, (The University of Chicago Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675550

[14]   George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 196

[15] King, David A, “Ibn al‐Shāṭir: ʿAlāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm,” Springer, 2007, https://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Ibn_al-Shatir_BEA.htm

[16] Peter Barker, University of Oklahoma. Tofigh Heidarzadeh, University of California, Riverside. Copernicus, the Tūsī Couple and East-West Exchange in the Fifteenth Century, “Unifying Heaven and Earth” Pg. 20

[17] Peter Barker, University of Oklahoma. Tofigh Heidarzadeh, University of California, Riverside. Copernicus, the Tūsī Couple and East-West Exchange in the Fifteenth Century, “Unifying Heaven and Earth” Pg. 20

[18] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 196

[19] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 197

[20] George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011), Ch. 6, pg. 197

[21] Editorial Team, “Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,” 2002-2019, https://muslimheritage.com/nasir-al-din-al-tusi/

[22] Editorial Team, “Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,” 2002-2019, https://muslimheritage.com/nasir-al-din-al-tusi/

[23] Peter Barker, University of Oklahoma. Tofigh Heidarzadeh, University of California, Riverside. Copernicus, the Tūsī Couple and East-West Exchange in the Fifteenth Century, “Unifying Heaven and Earth” Pg. 19

[24] Peter Barker, University of Oklahoma. Tofigh Heidarzadeh, University of California, Riverside. Copernicus, the Tūsī Couple and East-West Exchange in the Fifteenth Century, “Unifying Heaven and Earth” Pg. 21