An expert attributes the deficiency of mathematical diagrams in Greek manuscripts to errors in consecutive copies of the original.
Christián Carman, researcher of the committee Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, participates in a seminar of the group 'Science, Reason and Faith'.
The teacher Christhián Carlos Carmanresearcher attachment of the committee National Center for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and researcher de la National University of Quilmes (Argentina), made known at the University of Navarra that the deficiency of the mathematical diagrams of the Greek manuscripts is due to errors in the consecutive copies that were made of the original and not because they were made in a different way from the current one and we are facing a problem of cultural interpretation. He made his approach known during the March seminar of the group 'Science Reason and Faith'.graduate "The enigma of the diagrams of the Greek manuscripts".
The expert explained that the first time one is confronted with the oldest manuscripts of the mathematical or astronomical works of the Greeks, some deficiencies in the mathematical diagrams come to light: "Equal triangles appear when they should be different, arcs instead of lines, straight lines where there should be parabolas, among many other extravagances".
He pointed out that, since these features appear very early and virtually universally in all traditions of copies and translations of Greek works, there is agreement among scholars that the Greeks themselves made diagrams in this particular way.
However, after conducting an experiment with various groups of university students in which he gave them an example of a diagram, which the first had to draw, the second had to copy from the first, the third from the second, and so on until fill in each group, he realized that they arrived at the final drawing very similar to the one collected by the Greeks. "It is nice to show that the same structure of the diagrams copied over the centuries appears when they are copied several times by 21st century university students. It would be interesting to see if these same differences occur in Arabic and Latin manuscripts," he said.
Christián Carlos Carman is a member of the Commission for the History of Ancient and Medieval Astronomy of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and of the Philosophy of Science Association and founding member of the association of Philosophy and History of Science of the Southern Cone (AFHIC). He directs a project graduate "Scientific Realism and Ancient Astronomy", based in Argentina but with researchers from the United States, Canada, Brazil and England. He has also developed an extensive work of knowledge dissemination of which the TED: The iPad of Archimedes is an example.