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Ahmed ibn Musa ibn Shakir Banu Musa, also Bani Musa, (805 - 873), was a 9th century Persian mathematician from Baghdad, the middle of the Banu Musa brothers. Events Emperor Nicephorus I of Byzantium suffers a major defeat against the Saracens at Crasus. ...
Events Viking raid of Dorestad. ...
The Persians are an Iranian people who speak the Persian language and share a common culture and history. ...
Location of Baghdad within Iraq Baghdad (Arabic: ) (Bexda in Kurdish) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ...
He wrote one text under his own name, a treatise on pneumatic devices with the title On Mechanics. Another text on the theory of the balance was written by the three brothers but probably Ahmad played the leading role.
He, along with his two brothers, were instrumental in translating many scientific Greek and Pahlavi manuscripts into Arabic for al-Ma'mun. The Banu Musa brothers were among the first group of mathematicians to begin to carry forward the mathematical developments begun by the ancient Greeks. The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ...
The Arabic language (Arabic: ‎ translit: ), or simply Arabic (Arabic: ‎ translit: ), is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ...
Abu Jafar al-Mamun ibn Harun (786 - October 10, 833) (المأمون) was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 813 until his death in 833. ...
The Banu Musa brothers took a definite step forward, where the Greeks had not; The Greeks had not thought of areas and volumes as numbers, but had only compared ratios of areas etc. The Banu Musa's concept of number is broader than that of the Greeks. For example they describe pi as: Lower-case π (the lower case letter is usually used for the constant) The mathematical constant π ≈ 3. ...
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The Banu Musa brothers also introduce geometrical proofs which involve thinking of the geometric objects as moving. In particular they used kinematic methods to solve the classical problem of 'trisecting an angle'.
In astronomy the brothers made many contributions. They were instructed by al-Ma'mun to measure a degree of latitude and they made their measurements in the desert in northern Mesopotamia. They also made many observations of the sun and the moon from Baghdad. Muhammad and Ahmad measured the length of the year, obtaining the value of 365 days and 6 hours. Observations of the star Regulus were made by the three brothers from their house on a bridge in Baghdad in 840-41AD, 847-48AD, and 850-51AD. Abu Jafar al-Mamun ibn Harun (786 - October 10, 833) (المأمون) was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 813 until his death in 833. ...
Location of Baghdad within Iraq Baghdad (Arabic: ) (Bexda in Kurdish) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ...
Sources
- Golden Age of Persia, Richard Nelson Frye, p162-163.
- D El-Dabbah, The geometrical treatise of the ninth-century Baghdad mathematicians Banu Musa (Russian), in History Methodology Natur. Sci., No. V, Math. Izdat. (Moscow, 1966), 131-139.
Richard Nelson Frye is a well known scholar of Central Asian studies, and emeritus Aga Khan Professor of Iranian studies at Harvard University. ...
See also Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi. ...
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