Nuts & Bolts part II

Nuts & Bolts; Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way), by Roma Agrawal, Hodder & Stoughton, 2023.

This book continued to enlighten and inspire me to the end. There is no banging of drums, but the world view imparted by my Western education at least (and I’m guessing not much has changed to this day), which tells us that just about everything of any use or importance was invented or discovered by Western men is put quietly to bed by means of gentle example.

I had in all honesty never heard of the Islamic Golden Age of Science. My twenty-one-year-old daughter has heard of it but has been taught almost nothing about it. The Golden Age (also cultural, economic and philosophical) is generally regarded to have been from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries. In the eleventh century, Roma Agrawal tells us, the genius and polymath Ibn Al-Haytham explained how sight works, taking the science of optics leaps forwards, laying the groundwork for Newton et al., eventually giving rise to the invention and engineering of spectacles, microscopes, telescopes and cameras. Ibn Al-Haytham’s seven-volume Kitāb al-Manāthir (Book of Optics) were also laid the very foundations of what we now regard as the scientific method. This is in the chapter about the lens, which is prefaced by a moving dedicatory letter to the author’s daughter, who was born thanks to IVF, which would not have been possible had the lens not been invented. The author mentions her daughter a number of times and whenever she does, her love for her glows from the page. Without Ibn Al-Haytham’s work, specifically relating to the camera obscura, David Hockney would not have been in a position to postulate its use by the Old Masters to create projections of three-dimensional scenes and objects enabling them, amongst other things, to accurately depict perspective. Indeed, the physicist Charles M. Falco who helped to develop the Hockey-Falco thesis attributes the inspiration for this hugely significant artistic development directly to Ibn Al-Haytham’s work.

ChatGPT provides the following list of great scientists of the Islamic Golden Age. These names should be championed around the world and especially in Western education systems – who knows, it might just lead to a little bit more respect, tolerance and understanding.

1. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037) – A Persian polymath known for his contributions to various fields, including medicine, philosophy, and astronomy. His most famous work is “The Canon of Medicine,” a medical encyclopedia that remained a standard medical text in Europe for centuries.
2. Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) – A Persian mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to algebra, introducing the concept of algebraic algorithms. His work laid the foundation for modern algebra and algorithms.
3. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965-1040) – A Persian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist known for his contributions to optics and the scientific method. His book “Kitab al-Manazir” (Book of Optics) greatly influenced the development of optics in both the Islamic world and Europe.
4. Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber) (c. 721-815) – A Persian alchemist, chemist, and philosopher who made significant contributions to early chemistry. He developed many chemical processes and apparatus and is often referred to as the “father of chemistry.”
5. Al-Biruni (973-1048) – A Persian scholar who made contributions to various fields, including astronomy, mathematics, and geography. He is known for his accurate determination of the Earth’s circumference and his works on Indian mathematics and astronomy.
6. Al-Kindi (c. 801-873) – An Arab philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who played a significant role in preserving and transmitting Greek knowledge to the Islamic world. He made contributions to various fields, including philosophy, mathematics, and medicine.
7. Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126-1198) – A Spanish-Arab philosopher and polymath who made significant contributions to philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence. His commentaries on Aristotle had a profound influence on medieval European thought.
8. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274) – A Persian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who made important contributions to various fields, including trigonometry, astronomy, and ethics. He developed the Tusi couple, a mathematical device that generates linear motion from the combination of two circular motions.
9. Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288) – An Arab physician who made significant contributions to the fields of medicine and anatomy. He is best known for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of blood, centuries before it was “discovered” in Europe by William Harvey.
10. Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) (1091-1161) – An Arab physician and polymath who made significant contributions to medicine, particularly in surgery and pharmacology. He wrote influential medical texts that were widely used in Europe during the Middle Ages.

It is not just the work of Islamic scientists that has been conveniently ignored of course. The Archimedes screw was discovered in Greece but invented in ancient Egypt. We also learn in the chapter about the pump that an encyclopaedic work by Badi’ az-Zaman Abu-‘l-‘Izz Ibn Isma’il al-Razaz al-Jazari, Kitāb m’arifat al-Ḥiyāl al-handasiya, published in 1206 in what is now modern-day Turkey, describes over fifty mechanical devices in meticulous detail – with assembly instructions!

For string we might thank the Neanderthals: a tiny piece was uncovered by archaeologists in a layer below ground which is between 41,000 and 52,000 years old.