Dec 22, 2017 Friday
Bedtime Story
Automata in Abbasid Caliphate
As we saw with the Chinese example that
automata and robotics was in the mind of inventors of all civilizations.
No civilization is more underrated and
perhaps even berated than the Islamic Civilization simply because of its
present association with praetorian Islam and Wahhabism originating from modern
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The science that flourished in the era of
Islamic Golden Age somewhere around the eighth century would baffle most modern
human apes.
It is said that the first wind-powered
automata were built during this period around the palace complex of the Round
City of Baghdad.
One of the greatest chemist of this period
Jabir ibn Hayyan whose name was Latinized to Geber by the Christian West and
who had foreseen the energy that an atom contains had written a book highly
coded.
The book goes by the name of Book of Stones
and it is written is such an enigmatic fashion that it sounds gibberish.
In fact, it is very much possible that the
word gibberish originated out of this book’s author whose Latinized name Geber
could be the root of gibberish.
In this almost gibberish book: Book of
Stones Jabir ibn Hayyan describes construction of artificial snakes, reptiles
and humans that would be under the control of its creator.
One of the caliphs of Baghdad way back in
827 AD had metallic trees planted in his palace that were made of silver and
gold.
Now the exemplary features of these trees
were not just these precious metals but also that they had features of automata
in them.
It had metallic robotic birds that would burst
out into songs spontaneously on the branches that would swing automatically.
Yet another caliph belonging to the reign
of Abbasid Caliphate somewhere around 900 AD had golden trees planted in
Baghdad where too similar metallic birds would flap their wings and start
chirping noises.
The House of Wisdom was to Abbasid Caliphate
as Princeton University is to today’s United States of America though of
course, the United States has quite a few centers of academic excellence that
seriously compete with each other to attain number spot.
It had started off as a personal library
for the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid but slowly over time became a center of
excellence in sciences and mathematics.
During the mid ninth century the House of
Wisdom was the largest library of the world and housed books of Greek, Syriac,
Indian and Persian scholars of the past.
Many of us would be guilty of ignorance of
the Syriac languages and its associated cultures.
For now I will give it a skip and may write
about it in context to some other bedtime stories.
Working in this House of Wisdom in Baghdad
under the Abbasid Caliphate were three Iranian brothers who went by the name of
Banu Musa.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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