The Liber mahameleth. A 12th century mathematical treatise. 3 volume set
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The Liber mahameleth. A 12th century mathematical treatise. 3 volume set
zbMATH Open document ID: 1293.01007
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-03940-4
author: Jacques Sesiano
published in: Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
publication date: 2014-01-08T00:00:00Z
review text: This is the definitive Latin edition, English translation, and mathematical commentary of a 12th century mathematical treatise, the \textit{Liber mahameleth}, written by an author who had access to Arabic algebraic treatises, living in the still Arabic part of Spain, but himself not an Arab. The treatise exists in four manuscripts, two of which contain only a very small part of the entire treatise. Both in the introduction and on every page of the Latin text, the editor is very careful to mention all the variations that occur in different manuscripts. Each individual manuscript is presented in detail in the introduction, as are the (scant) traces of this work in medieval times, all the way to 1484. The reader of the \textit{Liber mahameleth} was supposed to have been acquainted with Euclid's \textit{Elements} and with Abū Kāmil's \textit{Algebra}. The mathematics dealt with include proportions and operations with them, linear equations (determinate and indeterminate ones), quadratic equations, summation of arithmetic series, some practical geometry, as well as metrology. Throughout the text, there are no numerical symbols in the text (they do occur in some illustrations, but without any explanation nor mention of their Indian origin), nor signs for arithmetical operations, nor for the main unknown (the \(x\)), which is simply \textit{res}, so that the book is a \(100\%\) language book (a typical sentence reading as ``Converte tertiam in quintas, et fient quinta et due tertie unius quinte.''). What's more unusual is that there is no method for the exact determination of the square root of non-square integers, only approximation methods, although the book had all the needed tools to provide the algorithm. The mathematical commentary on the text (Volume 3) offers an invaluable tool by presenting the content of the Latin text not only in English (which Volume 2 already did, but without any actual formula, i.e., as a purely English language text), but also with today's a…
reviewed by: Victor V. Pambuccian
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01-02
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A30
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A35
zbMATH DE Number: 6243679
zbMATH Keywords: Liber mahameleth
zbMATH Keywords: Euclid
zbMATH Keywords: Spain (Arabic part)
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03940-4
OpenAlex ID: W2477131044
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6243679