Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

part of the general disillusionment shortly afterwards.
Thibodeau, Philip
E-mail Address: pthib@arches.uga.edu
Why Euclid's Optics is Incompatible with Linear Perspective
In his famous monograph, Perspective as Symbolic Form, Erwin Panofsky attempted to explain the
failure of ancient Greek painters to develop consistent linear perspective. He correctly claimed that
Euclid’s Optics, Proposition 8 (magnitudes at disparate intervals are not seen as proportional to their
distances‚) would preclude the development of the geometric constructions such perspective requires.
But Panofsky also took the proposition to express the Greeks’ supposed awareness of curves created in
the visual field by the retina. In fact, the proposition has no basis in actual perception, but is deduced
directly from the axioms of the Optics. Proposition 8 is valid in terms of those axioms, and its negation
invalid. Since the proposition entails that parallel straight lines will appear to be both straight and
converging, the visual space studied in Euclid’s Optics is non-Euclidean. Now the Optics’ analysis of
rectilinear figures is, when compared to its study of the appearances of spheres and circles, fairly crude.
The reason is that rectilinear figures like squares generate paradoxical appearances, while circular
figures do not. Euclid halted his investigation of rectilinear figures prematurely, to avoid the paradoxes
but this left him unable to explore the constructions linear perspective uses. Thus, if linear perspective
methods are to progress, one must ignore Proposition 8. And as Panofsky has also shown, that is precisely
what the Renaissance did.
Timmons,Todd
E-mail Address: ttimmons@systema.westark.edu
Tension Between Practical and Theoretical Science in Nineteenth-Century America: The Case of
Nathaniel Bowditch
Nathaniel Bowditch was one of the leading mathematicians and scientists in early nineteenth-century
America. His life and works illustrate the tension between practical and theoretical science during this
period. The New American Practical Navigator was, and still is, a classic in navigation that earned
Bowditch the respect of sailors and practical men of science throughout the world. His other major
work, a translation and commentary on Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste brought praise from the great
mathematical astronomers of Europe. Although his fame resulted in several offers for academic positions,
Bowditch chose to remain in his work as actuary and executive of several New England insurance
companies. This paper will explore Bowditch’s scientific career and how it relates to larger questions
involving the nature of early American science.
Touwaide, Alain
E-mail Address: atouwaide@hotmail.com
Arabic Medicine in Greek Translation - How was it Translated ?
Among the ca. 2,200 manuscripts that contain Greek medical texts, around 200 preserve material of
all kind (from full treatises to brief notes and recipes) that is entitled as translated from Arabic or that
can be identified as such. These texts, produced from the 11th century to the 15th, come from Southern
Italy (11th century) or the Eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire (mainly during the 14th and 15th
centuries) and deal mainly with pharmacology. In this paper, I shall focus on the techniques of translation.
In preparing a critical edition of these texts, indeed, I have identified the original of some texts or
copies of the first generation. The examination of these codices brings new light on the act of translating,
not known through explicit statements. Among the results of the enquiry, it appears that the translations
of the first period were probably prepared by bilingual doctors (especially in Southern Italy), while those