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Hilbert, David (1862-1943)

Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.

In H. Eves Mathematical Circles Squared, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1971.

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Loci: Convergence

Mathematical Treasures

by Frank J. Swetz and Victor J. Katz

Qadi Zada al-Rumi's Geometry

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This is page 14 from the Geometry (1412) of Qadi Zada al-Rumi (1364-1436). Al-Rumi's book was a commentary on the Fundamental Theorems, written by al-Samarqandi (1250-1310), where he discusses twenty-five of Euclid's propositions in detail.  The book shown in the image is a later copy of al-Rumi's work, probably written in the sixteenth century.  At the top of the page is a discussion of Euclid's Proposition I-5, the "Bridge of Asses" proposition that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal.  At the bottom, there is a discussion of I-6, the converse of I-5.  Al-Rumi was an astronomer and mathematician in the court of Ulugh Beg (1393-1449) in Samarkand.  He and his colleagues compiled the first complete star catlogue since the time of Ptolemy.


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