Posted on 02/22/2007 6:15:51 PM PST by xcamel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in mediaeval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday.
By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be "quasicrystalline" designs, Harvard University's Peter Lu and Princeton University's Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science.
Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.
"Oh, it's absolutely stunning," Lu said in an interview. "They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn't figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years."
Lu and Steinhardt in particular cite designs on the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, built in 1453.
Islamic tradition has frowned upon pictorial representations in artwork. Mosques and other grand buildings erected by Islamic architects throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere often are wrapped in rich, intricate tile designs setting out elaborate geometric patterns.
The walls of many mediaeval Islamic structures display sumptuous geometric star-and-polygon patterns. The research indicated that by 1200 an important breakthrough had occurred in Islamic mathematics and design, as illustrated by these geometric designs.
"You can go through and see the evolution of increasing geometric sophistication. So they start out with simple patterns, and they get more complex" over time, Lu added.
ISLAMIC ACHIEVEMENTS
While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, Islamic culture flourished beginning in the 7th century, with achievements over numerous centuries in mathematics, medicine, engineering, ceramics, art, textiles, architecture and other areas.
Lu said the new revelations suggest Islamic culture was even more advanced than previously thought.
While travelling in Uzbekistan, Lu said, he noticed a 16th century Islamic building with decagonal motif tiling, arousing his curiosity as to the existence of quasicrystalline Islamic tilings.
The sophistication of the patterns used in Islamic architecture has intrigued scholars worldwide.
Emil Makovicky of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in the 1990s noticed the relationship between these designs and a form of quasicrystalline designs. Makovicky was interested in particular in an 1197 tomb in Maragha, Iran.
Joshua Socolar, a Duke university physicist, said it is unclear whether the mediaeval Islamic artisans fully understood the mathematical properties of the patterns they were making.
"It leads you to wonder whether they kind of got lucky," Socolar said in an interview. "But the fact remains that the patterns are tantalizingly close to having the structure that Penrose discovered in the mid-70s."
"And it will be a lot of fun if somebody turns up bigger tilings that sort of make a more convincing case that they understood even more of the geometry than the present examples show," Socolar said.
It pains me to say this, but there is a small portion of Radical Islam that seem to be very good at making, altering, and fabricated improvised explosive devices. That is a science. This revelation might seem insignificant to some of you, but to me it is the difference between a pleasant drive in the country, and a sphinchter tightening near death experience on wheels.
Yep. Just because the chinese steal microsoft programs doesn't make the programs chinese.
...that PROVES it...!!!
M.C. Escher was a muslim mystic.
short answer envy
This is a difficult question to answer since geometry has been around in one form or another as long as there has been written history. The Egyptians were making use of geometry to build pyramids even in prehistoric times. It was the Greeks, however who first began to rigorously study geometry and try to prove facts about it. Euclid was perhaps the most notable geometer of ancient mathematics and it was he who first axiomatized the subject (carefully defined the concepts crucial to geometry).
I believe you will find that Euclid lived about 1,000 years before Islam enveloped the Arabic world.
Now.. the best part... if the article had been written with the word 'islamic' replaced with Arabic or the Arabic 'root cultures' and without reference to religion, I seriously doubt there would have been nearly 300 replies.
~JMNSHO~
LOL!
They are studied by scholars as 'Arabic' and 'Islamic' philosophers.
Now if you are going to start to argue that God created Arabs with lesser intellects than other races, we're going to have a serious problem here....
I never said it did. If you believe that I was arguing in favor of Islam itself, you misunderstand.
9 = 18
It's not really an unusual phenomenon in history, is it?
It's just highly disturbing to read so much of it on what is supposed to be a conservative forum where thought is supposed to be first and foremost....
"This is stupid. Let me explain this: what they "discovered" was tiling a floor. The fact is that Penrose's stuff was only remarkable in its mathematical rigor. It's nothing innovative. The Greeks did similar stuff."
In fact, I remember reading Penrose's book "The Emperor's New Mind", where he also discussed "tilings" like these. I seem to recall reading in that book about some housewife from the Midwest (or something like that) who had come up with a whole bunch of these non-repeating tilings with various (typically fairly small) numbers of shapes. Very likely the guys who came up with these tilings were just very imaginative and good at what they did, but had no mathmatical background at all, beyond the relatively simple math required in their business.
It is an interesting subject, though.
Read the posts on this thread, Fred. They are ignorant, bigoted (stupid) comments about monkeys and barbarians.
The fact that there were medieval Islamic scholars and philosophers is not even debateable. They existed. I never argued to what level their thought was 'rooted in Islam.' The fact that some were neoplatonic or Aristotelian indicates that they were in fact, scholars who understood Greek philosophy, which is certainly not Christian either. (Though some would argue that Plato is pre-Christian with an understanding of Christ's teachings).
My bringing up medieval scholarship in Muslim countries was for one purpose only..........to enlighten the 'monkeys' on this thread who haven't got a clue.....
It obviously didn't work.
I'm sure this stunning math breakthrough led to them being able to produce a much better detonator for their latest bomb vests.
Makes the world a better place, I'm sure.
The problem with using Bach incorrectly to further your argument, is that it didn't.
(btw, try to analyze retrograde inversion in a fugue sometime. It will challenge your math intellect. :)
Roger. See my post #241.
The key to the article: "It leads you to wonder whether they kind of got lucky,"
In another couple of thousand years they may get lucky again and enter the 1500s.
Designed by recently captured Christians.
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