The Scientist Pope | Nancy Marie Brown

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Did you know that the Pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day? Did you also know that he was the first mathematician in the Christian West known to use Arabic numerals? In this video, Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages, explores a parallel universe, an alternate history of the Middle Ages, in which science was central to the lives of caliphs, bishops, kings, and even popes.

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The Scientist Pope:

I was introduced to The Scientist Pope through an act of grace. Writing a book about an adventurous Viking woman, I made an imaginary pilgrimage to Rome just after the year 1000. Wondering which pope Gudrid the Far-Traveler may have met, I discovered Gerbert of Aurillac, who served as Pope Sylvester II from 999 to 1003.

I was astonished. Nothing in my years of reading about the Middle Ages had led me to suspect that the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day.

Nor was his science just a sidelight. According to a chronicler who knew him, he rose from humble beginnings to the highest office in the Christian Church “on account of his scientific knowledge.”

I felt as if I had stumbled into a parallel universe, an alternate history of the Middle Ages. So I began writing another book, to share the story of The Scientist Pope.

A professor at a cathedral school in France for most of his career, Gerbert of Aurillac was the first Christian known to teach math using Arabic numerals.

He devised an abacus, or counting board, that mimics the algorithms we use today for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. It has been called the first computer.

Gerbert made sighting tubes to observe the stars and constructed globes on which their positions were recorded relative to lines of celestial longitude and latitude.

He (or perhaps his best student) wrote a handbook on the astrolabe, an instrument for telling time and making measurements by the sun or stars. You could even use it to calculate the circumference of the earth, which Gerbert knew very well was not flat like a disc but round like an apple.

All of this science Gerbert learned as a youth living on the border of Islamic Spain—then an extraordinarily tolerant culture in which learning was prized.

In the caliph’s library in Cordoba were 40,000 books; Gerbert’s French monastery owned fewer than 400. Many of the caliph’s books came from Baghdad, known for its House of Wisdom, where for 200 years works of mathematics, astronomy, physics, and medicine had been translated from Greek and Persian and Hindu and further developed by Islamic scholars.

In the world Gerbert knew, Arabic was the language of science. Much of what Gerbert taught at his cathedral school in France, for example, was derived from the works of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Persian scientist in Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.

In the early 800s, al-Khwarizmi wrote a book on what we call Arabic numerals: He named it “On Indian Calculation,” well aware that the symbols 1 to 9, and the place-value system that makes arithmetic easy, originally came from India.

Modern algebra comes from a second book by al-Khwarizmi: You can thank him for quadratic equations. Al-Khwarizmi’s own name gives us the word algorithm, without which no computer scientist could function.

His third book is a set of star tables, in which he uses trigonometry, spherical astronomy, and other advanced math to calculate the changing positions in the heavens of the planets, sun, and moon.

Finally, al-Khwarizmi wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, which was the most important scientific instrument until Galileo invented the telescope in the 17th century.

Al-Khwarizmi’s books quickly reached Islamic Spain—perhaps even before his death in about 850. There, during Gerbert’s lifetime, a hundred years later, Al-Khwarizmi’s algebra and his treatise on the astrolabe were among the science books translated from Arabic into Latin through the combined efforts of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars.

Many of these scholars were churchmen, and some of them became Gerbert’s lifelong friends. One of these is Miro Bonfill, the Bishop of Girona. In one of Miro’s books, he writes, “What follows now has been translated by the wisest scholar among the Arabs, as he was instructing me.”
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Arabic was the English of the Middle Ages, it was said that the king of France used to write his name in Arabic to show how educated he was

theballroomyearsago
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A nice and balanced coverage of both Christianity and Islam. Also the Animations look very good. Keep up the Good Work.

TahaWasiq
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Can I hug you.... You are spreading LOVE and Knowledge and and awareness. My prayers are with you.

dr.strange
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I never know that Al-Khwarizmi influence really reach that far in Christian world, we DID learn something new every day

Wolfboy_
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Non-neutral teaching is one factor that spread peace.
i am Arabic and thank you for this video.

jurhumal-maskari
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This is so beautiful. I almost cried. Their passion for learning and innovation is what brought them together. Their contribution is priceless.

nuqmanzubir
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There was a mistake in the captions at 3:32, where the narrator said "early *800s* ", but it was written in the captions as "early *1800s* ". Just to let you guys know.
Peace

mdtauseefzubayeramin
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Great stuff!! The Abacus and the Cross is a fantastic book, an amazing journey to another world - thank you Nancy for revealing our forgotten history!

brianfergus
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I am Muslim and I really love this channel, it makes me learn more about the Abrahamic family. love for u and Christianity ... keep up the good work ❤

daizer
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These are all fantastic videos! Thankyou! I did not know about the Scientist Pope, or the Islamic part of the history of mathematics.

adamelovalis
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This is amazing, I knew about Sylvester II but it’s amazing he was the first Pope to use Arabic numerals

thomasbarca
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The graphics and the editing of this video is amazing

hamzamohamad
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When Spaniards conquered Andalus they burned thousands of books beleiving them to be witch craft!
And In Baghdad the Mongol army threw massive numbers of books into the river Euphrates, so much that the river waters color changed due to ink.
What was saved from those books contributed to more than 90% of the knowledge we have today.
Imagine how our world would've been today if all that knowledge was saved.

saudkm
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go to Malaysia and you can feel a little bit what peace between religion is..

Thanks for the video.. as usual your video is great.

mastersealzunitycodez
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Thank you for sharing with us Mrs. Mary and Emir Stein!

azamatkenjaev
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I totally agree with the message of peace given in this video. Christian's and Muslims must be the best friends as Islam is the only non-Christian religion that makes it an article of faith for its followers to believe in Jesus peace be upon him ❤🌹😍

testcricket
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Thank you. I really love this channel. The contents are always amazing...

yasuharaniwa
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I've got a good feeling about this channel. The balanced coverage of both Christianity and Islam makes me hope for a better future.

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I'm a subscriber from Philippines💕💞💕💞💕

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Finally a new video of ESC. God bless you guys. ☺️

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welcome to shbcf.ru