Posted on 02/22/2007 6:15:51 PM PST by xcamel
No doubt there's often a correlation between musical and mathematical talent, at least when it comes to Western music and it's unique interplay of harmony and counterpoint. However, the mathematics of string theory is equally unlikely to suddenly surface in the medieval Germany of Bach as is Roger Penrose's mathematics in 15th century Iran. The title of the original article, "Mediaeval Muslims made stunning math breakthrough", is just the kind of fluff which underlies the bigotry of low expectations one expects from contemporary 'liberals'.
Indeed.
Thread is a more accurate term.
Your statement may sound educated, but you are about 300 years off in your attribution of Bach to medieval Germany.
1685- 1750......Baroque. His music is far more advanced than you may know. Have you ever analyzed a Bach fugue? Sheer genius.
I thought it was somebody else, but it's of no matter.
Had the Romans (and others) not burned the library at Alexandria (several times), we'd know a hell of a lot more about what the world knew and didn't know before Mohammed showed up.
I'd vote for that as possibly the single greatest crime in the history of the world. A tremendous setback. It's completely imponderable what things had to be re-discovered perhaps centuries later. Perhaps some things that haven't yet been re-discovered. Who knows?
I suppose that it's likely a moot point. If it hadn't already been burned, Mohammed might likely have been the one to do it anyway. :-)
Medieval or not, Bach still didn't have the education nor the tools to formally understand the math which may underlie his beautiful music. Under different circumstances, he might have been a brilliant mathematician, no doubt.
"There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle parts. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity.
"Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.
"Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy.
"It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch."
--Stephen Hawking
Sad isn't it. Using that logic, we might as well write off German innovation in the sciences and arts because of the Nazis, Chinese inventions and culture because of Mao or even American culture and ingenuity because of Adam Sandler.
It just supports the old story that if you put an infinite number om monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters they will eventually type in every geat work of literature every written.
Well here are the monkeys.
I see............sort of like you have no 'formal' understanding about Bach.
Was that just by accident, or did you do it on purpose?
Hitler and Mao were in power for a very short time - whereas mohammad, to muslims, rules from the 7th century until forever. The koran and hadith have ruled every thought and action of muslims for 1400 years. Germany and China regressed under Hitler and Mao, but it was a temporary regression. Islam is permanently regressive. btw, I'm an aussie, I have no idea who Adam Sandler is.
Are you kidding?!? Every news article posted here that states medieval Islamic scientists contributed anything to Western civilization is met with comments like that or just short of it. I've seen worse, even been directed to a site or two that was junk revisionist history if not flat out racism
The subject at hand here, mathematics, is by definition about formalisms.
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