3 - THE MIXED MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Summary

Of the scientific traditions of medieval Islamic civilization, optics and mechanics especially stand out in their decisive roles in the transformation of the relations and applications of the mathematical and natural sciences. The Islamic Middle Ages witnessed breakthroughs in all the Aristotelian mixed sciences, a point that, along with their comparative rates of success, was not lost on one early observer. Optics drew on at least three textual traditions: the mathematical visual models of Euclid and Ptolemy, natural-philosophical traditions of Aristotle and the atomists, and the anatomical and medical tradition of Galen and his followers. As in most Islamic scientific traditions, the early transmission of optics and mechanics involved Greco-Arabic and Arabo-Latin phases on a cross-cultural level and Arabo-Persian phases on an intracultural level. The applications of mathematics to natural bodies in both branches of mechanics were largely limited to geometrical models or proofs, in contrast to the observational methods of both optics and astronomy.