CHAPTER 7 Science in Islam 第7章 伊斯兰中的科学

CHAPTER 7 Science in Islam 第7章 伊斯兰中的科学

Galen did not live to see the decline of the Roman Empire, but by AD 307 it had been split in two. The new emperor, Constantine (280-337), moved his seat of power to the east- to Constantinople, now Istanbul in modern Turkey. There he would be nearer to the eastern part of the Empire, lands that we now call the Middle East. The learning and wisdom contained in the Greek and Latin manuscripts, as well as the scholars who were able to study them, began to move eastwards.

盖伦没有看到罗马帝国的衰落，但公元307年时帝国就分裂成两个国家了。新的皇帝，君士坦丁（280-337），将他的力量放到了东边，去了君士坦丁堡，现代土耳其的伊斯坦布尔。在那里他离立国东部较近，也就是现在我们称为中东的那部分。希腊和拉丁手稿中所包含的知识和智慧，以及研究这些智慧的学者，都向帝国东部移动了。

A new religion arose in the Middle East: Islam, which followed the teachings of the great prophet Muhammad (570-632). Islam would come to dominate most of the Middle East and North Africa, and even as far as Spain and East Asia, but in the two centuries after Muhammad's death, the new religion was largely confined to Baghdad and other settlements in the area. All Muslim scholars studied the Qur'an, the central religious text of Islam. Yet many of them were also interested in the many manuscripts that had been brought there after Rome was attacked in 455. A 'House of Wisdom' was established in Baghdad, which encouraged ambitious young men to join in the translation and study of these old manuscripts.

一种新的宗教在中东兴起：伊斯兰，遵循的是伟大先知默罕默德(570-632)的教导。伊斯兰将在默罕默德死后两个世纪内，席卷中东和北非的大部分，还远大西班牙和东亚，在这之前，这个新宗教一直在巴格达及区域内的其他定居点传播。所有穆斯林学者都学习《古兰经》，这是伊斯兰教的中心宗教文本。罗马在455年受到攻击后很多手稿被带到了这里，这些穆斯林学者中多数人也对这些手稿很感兴趣。巴格达建造了智慧之屋，鼓励有雄心的年轻人加入对这些手稿的翻译和研究。

Many of the old manuscripts were still in the original Greek or Latin, but others had already been translated into Middle Eastern languages. The works of Aristotle, Euclid, Galen and other thinkers of ancient Greece were all translated - a very good thing too, as some of the original versions have since disappeared. Without Islamic scholars, we wouldn't know half as much as we do about our scientific ancestors. And more than that: it was their translations that formed the foundation of European science and philosophy after about 1100.

这些古老的手稿中很多仍然是原始希腊或拉丁文的，但其他的已经被翻译成中东语言。亚里士多德、欧几里得、盖伦和其他古思想家的作品都被翻译了，这也是一件非常好的事，因为很多原版就此消失了。没有伊斯兰学者，我们对科学祖先的了解不会到今天的一半。功劳比这个还要多：就是这些译作形成了公元1100年后欧洲科学和哲学的基础。

Islamic science straddled East and West, just as the Muslim lands did. Aristotle and Galen were just as admired in Islamic lands as they were in Europe; Aristotle made his way into Islamic philosophy, and Galen became the master of medical theory and practice. Meanwhile, ideas from India and China were introduced to the West. Paper from China made it much easier to produce manuscripts, though they still had to be copied by hand, and mistakes were common. From India came the numerals 1 to 9, the idea of 0, and place-holding, all invented by Indian mathematicians. Europeans could do calculations using Roman numerals, such as I, II and Ill, but it was difficult, even if that was what they were used to. It's simpler to use 4×12 than IV×XII, isn't it? When Europeans translated Islamic works into Latin, they called these numerals 'Arabic'- strictly speaking, they should have said 'Indian-Arabic', but what a mouthful! The word 'algebra' actually comes from the term al-jabr, in the title of a widely-translated book by a ninth-century Arab mathematician. There is more about algebra in Chapter 14.

伊斯兰科学衔接了东方与西方，就像穆斯林的领土一样。亚里士多德和盖伦在伊斯兰和欧洲同样崇拜，亚里士多德走进了伊斯兰哲学中，盖伦成为医学理论和实践的大师。同时，印度和中国的思想也介绍到西方来。中国的造纸术使得制作手稿容易多了，虽然仍然需要手抄，错误也很经常。从印度传来了数字1到9，还有0的概念，占位符的概念，这些都是印度数学家的创造。欧洲人可以用罗马数字进行计算，比如I, II和III，但非常不好用，虽然过去是那么做的。计算4×12比IV×XII容易多了，不是吗？当欧洲人将伊斯兰作品翻译回拉丁文，他们称之为阿拉伯数字，其实严格的说，应该称之为印度-阿拉伯，但多拗口啊！代数这个词从al-jabr来，是9世纪一个阿拉伯数学家广为翻译的书的题目。有关代数第14章讲了更多。

Islamic scholars made many significant discoveries and observations. If you have ever climbed up a mountain, or gone to a country that is high above sea level, you might know that breathing is more difficult because the air is thinner. But how high would you have to go before you couldn't breathe any more? In other words, how high is the atmosphere, the band of breathable air that surrounds the globe? Ibn Mu'adh, in the eleventh century, hit upon a smart way of finding out. He reasoned that twilight - that is, when the sun has set, but the sky is still light - happens because the sun's dying rays are being reflected by water vapor high in the atmosphere. (Many Islamic scholars were interested in such tricks of the light.) Observing how fast the sun had disappeared from the evening sky, he worked out that the sun at twilight was 19 degrees below the horizon. From there, he calculated that the height of the atmosphere was fifty-two miles - not so far off the height of sixty-two miles we now think is correct. Simple, but very impressive.

伊斯兰学者做出了很多杰出的发现，进行了很多观察。如果你爬上了一座高山，或者去了一个很高海拔的国家，你就会感到呼吸困难，因为空气非常稀薄。但要去多高才能根本无法呼吸呢？换句话来说，多高才能达到可呼吸空气的红线呢？Ibn Mu'adh，在11世纪时，找到了一种聪明的方法来得到答案。他对暮光进行了推理，暮光就是当太阳落山时，天空依然是明亮的，这是因为太阳的余晖被空气中的水蒸气折射而成的（很多伊斯兰学者对光的这种把戏很感兴趣）。通过观察太阳从傍晚的天空消失的速度，他得到了暮光时的太阳是低于地平线19度。从那里，他计算出大气的高度是52英里，现在我们认为是62英里，这个结果相差并不是太大。简单，却让人印象深刻。

Other Islamic scholars investigated the reflection of light in a mirror, or the strange effect of light passing through water. (Put a pencil in a half-filled glass of water: it looks bent, doesn't it?) Most Greek philosophers had assumed that seeing something involved light coming out of the eye, hitting the object that was being viewed, and bouncing back. Islamic scientists mostly favored the more modern view, that the eye receives light from the things we see, which the brain then interprets. Otherwise, as they pointed out, how is it that we can't see in the dark?

其他伊斯兰学者研究了光在镜子中的反射，或光射入水时的奇怪效果（将铅笔一半放入一杯水中，看起来会折断，不是吗？）。大多数希腊哲学家都认为看东西肯定是有什么东西从眼睛里出来，然后碰到了被看的物体，然后反射回来。伊斯兰科学家则更支持现代一些的观点，认为眼睛从所看的东西哪里接收了光，然后由大脑进行解释。否则，就像他们指出的那样，我们在暗处为什么看不到东西呢？

Many in the Middle East did see in the dark: their astronomers looked at the stars, and their charts and tables of the night skies were better than those of Western astronomers. They still thought that the earth was the centre of the universe, but two Islamic astronomers, al-Tusi in Persia and Ibn al-Shatir in Syria produced diagrams and some calculations that were important to the Polish astronomer Copernicus 300 years later.

中东的很多人确实在暗处观察东西：他们的天文学家观察星星，他们夜空的图表比西方天文学家的好。他们仍然认为地球是宇宙的中心，但有两个伊斯兰天文学家，波斯的al-Tusi和叙利亚的Ibn al-Shatir制作出的图表中，其中一些计算对于300年后的波兰天文学家哥白尼非常重要。

Medicine, more than any other Islamic science, had the greatest impact on European thinking. Hippocrates, Galen and the other Greek doctors were lovingly translated and commented on, but several Islamic doctors also made names for themselves. Rhazes (c. 854-c. 925), as he is known in the West, wrote important works in several subjects besides medicine; he also left an accurate description of smallpox, a much-feared disease, which often killed its victims and scarred those who survived. Rhazes distinguished smallpox from measles, which is still a disease that children and some adults catch. Like smallpox, measles produces a rash and fever. Smallpox is now happily extinct, the result of an international campaign to protect people by vaccination, led by the World Health Organization (WHO). The last case occurred in 1977: Rhazes would have been pleased.

与其他伊斯兰科学比起来，医学对欧洲思想的影响最为巨大。希波克拉底、盖伦和其他希腊医生的著作都经过了翻译和注释，但几个伊斯兰医生也非常出名。Rhazes (c.854-c.925)在西方就非常有名，他有几部关于医学等主题的重要著作；他还留下了对天花这种很多人都觉得害怕的病的精确描述，这种病经常让受害者不治身亡，即使幸存下来的人也会留下疤痕。Rhazes将天花和麻疹区别了开来，麻疹是一种小孩和一些大人都会得的病。和天花一样，麻疹也会产生皮疹和发热。通过WHO领导的接种疫苗的战役，天花现在已经灭绝了。最后一例是在1977年，Rhazes对这个结果肯定很满意。

Avicenna (980-1037) was the most influential Islamic doctor. Like many other eminent Islamic scholars, he was busy in many fields: not just medicine, but also philosophy, mathematics and physics. As a scientist, Avicenna developed Aristotle's views on light, and corrected Galen on a number of points. His Canon of Medicine was one of the first books in Arabic that was translated into Latin, and it was used as a textbook in European medical schools for almost 400 years. It is still used in some modern Islamic countries, which is unfortunate, since it is sadly out of date now.

最有影响力的伊斯兰医生是Avicenna (980-1037)。和很多其他著名伊斯兰学者一样，他忙于很多领域，不止医学，也包括哲学、数学和物理。作为一名科学家，Avicenna发展了亚里士多德关于光的观点，并修正了Galen的几个错误。他的《医学标准》是第一批翻译为拉丁文的阿拉伯医学著作之一，在欧洲被用作教科书约达400年。现在一些现代伊斯兰国家仍然使用，这很不幸，因为已经非常过时了。

For more than 300 years, the most important scientific and philosophical work was done in Islamic countries. While Europe slept, the Middle East (and Islamic Spain) was busy. The most important places were Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordoba (in Spain). These cities all shared one characteristic: enlightened rulers who valued and even funded research, and were tolerant of scholars of all faiths. Thus, Christians and Jews as well as Muslims contributed to this movement. Not all Islamic rulers were happy for knowledge to be gained from whatever source; some held that the Qur'an contained everything a person needed to know. These tensions continue today. Science has always been strongest in cultures that are open to the new, since finding out about the world can produce surprises.

有超过300年的时间，最重要的科学和哲学工作都是在伊斯兰国家完成的。当欧洲沉睡的时候，中东（和伊斯兰西班牙）在忙碌。世界最重要的地点在巴格达、大马士革、开罗和科尔多瓦（西班牙）。这些城市有一个共同特点：开明的统治者很重视研究工作，甚至资助研究工作，对所有信仰的学者都很宽容。所以，基督徒和犹太教徒和穆斯林一样，对这场运动做出了贡献。并不是所有的统治者都对所有来源的知识乐见其成，一些统治者认为古兰经包括了一个人需要知道的所有知识。这种紧张持续到了今天。科学在对新事物开放的文化中一直是最强的，因为探寻世界总能发现惊喜。