TITLE:
Mathematical Instruments Commonly Used among the Ottomans
AUTHORS:
Irem Aslan Seyhan
KEYWORDS:
Mathematical Instruments, Ottoman Mathematics, Ottoman Military Engineering Academies, Military Engineering Academies, Compendium of Mathematical Sciences, Chief Instructor Ishaq Efendi
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Historical Studies,
Vol.8 No.1,
March
8,
2019
ABSTRACT: At the end of 17th century and during 18th century,
after devastating Russian wars the Ottomans realized that they fell behind of
the war technology of the Western militaries. In order to catch up with their
Western rivals, they decided that they had to reform their education systems.
For that they sent several students to abroad for education and started to
translate Western books. They
established Western style military academies of engineering. They also invited
foreign teachers in order to give education in these institutes and they
consulted them while there were preparing the curriculum. For all these, during the modernization period, the reform (nizama-1 cedid) planers modelled mainly France,
especially for teaching the applied disciplines. Since their main aim
was to grasp the technology of the West, their interest focused on the applied
part of sciences and mathematics. For that reason, they had a very keen
interest on mathematical instruments. The main objective in this article is to
examine mathematical instruments commonly used in the Ottoman empire. We
examined that by dividing the subject in two periods: The Classical period (Medieval
Islamic Echole) and the Modernization period (Western Echole). Our main focus
in this article will be the Modernization period and the instruments used in
the Ottoman military academies.