Stars and Numbers

Paul Kunitzsch is Emeritus Professor of Arabic Studies in the Institute of Semitic Studies, the University of Munich, Germany.

Contents: Preface; Ptolemy in the Arabic-Latin Tradition: Gerard's translations of astronomical texts, especially the Almagest; Gerhard von Cremona als Ãœbersetzer des Almagest; Ãœber einige Spuren der syrischen Almagestübersetzung; Die astronomische Terminologie im Almagest; A hitherto unknown Arabic manuscript of the Almagest; The second Arabic manuscript of Ptolemy's Planisphaerium; The role of al-Andalus in the transmission of Ptolemy's Planisphaerium and Almagest; Fragements of Ptolemy's Planisphaerium in an Early Latin Translation; Das Arabische als Vermittler und Anreger europäischer Wissenschaftssprache; Erfahrungen und Beobachtungen bei der Arbeit mit Texten der arabisch-lateinischen Ãœbersetzungsliteratur (Mathematik/Astronomie). Arabic Astronomy: The chapter on the fixed stars in Zaradusht's Kitab al-Mawalid; The astronomer al-Sufi as a source for Ulug Beg's Star Catalogue (1437); Al-Sufi and the astrolabe stars; An Arabic celestial globe from the Schmidt Collection, Vienna. Arabic Astronomy in the West: Les relations scientifiques entre l'Occident et le monde arabe à l'époque de Gerbert; Traces of a 10th-century Spanish-Arabic astrolabe; La table des climats dans le corpus des plus anciens textes latins sur l'astrolabe; The stars on the rete of the so-called 'Carolingian astrolabe'; Three dubious stars in the oldest European table of astrolabe stars; The chapter on the stars in an early European treatise on the use of the astrolabe (ca. AD 1000); A note on Ascelinus' Table of Astrolabe Stars; On six kinds of astrolabe: a hitherto unknown Latin treatise; Zur Problematik der Astrolabsterne: eine weitere unbrauchbare Sterntafel; Coronelli's great celestial globe made for Louis XIV: the nomenclature; Rätselhafte Sternnamen. Mathematics And Numbers: Findings in some texts of Euclid's Elements (mediaeval transmission, Arabo-Latin); 'The Peacock's Tail': on the names of some theorems of Euclid's Elements; Letters in geometrical diagrams, Greek - Arabic - Latin; The transmission of Hindu-Arabic numerals reconsidered; Indexes.