Once again Obama plays a little loose with the truth. Is it ignorance or deceit, you decide. In his speech in Cairo he cited many contributions made to civilization by Islam. Ignoring the "political" contributions the rest of his history is either the result of poor education for he and his speech writers or deliberate attempts to improve Islam's reputation by falsehoods or partial truths.
The following paragraph is directly from his speech as printed in the New York Times on June 4, 2009. After the speech see the actual historical facts which can be verified on wikopedia.
Note that the Islamic/Arabic world can claim algebra but all the other claims are either exaggerations such as those for pens and printing or outright errors such as the magnetic compass and architectural arches.
Obama's Cairo Speech Excerpt
"It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of
algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of
pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how
it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and
soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant
calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout
history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the
possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."
Compass
The world’s first compass was made in China during the Qin Dynasty.
It was made with lodestone – an iron oxide-based mineral that aligns
itself in a north-south direction due to the Earth’s magnetic field –
which was commonly used in Chinese geomancy and fortune-telling.
The use of a compass was recorded in several Chinese texts including
a 4th century book entitled the Book of the Devil Valley Master,
which describes its use in pathfinding. The first person officially
recorded to have used the compass as a navigational aid was Chinese
admiral Zheng He, who made eight sea voyages between 1405 and 1433.
Arch
Arches were known by the Mesopotamian Urartian, Harappan, Egyptian,
Babylonian, Greek and Assyrian civilizations, but their use was
infrequent and mostly confined to underground structures such as
drains where the problem of lateral thrust is greatly diminished. The
oldest arched city gate in the world, eight feet wide, was found in
Ashkelon, Israel, and is dated to the middle bronze age.
Pens
Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when
scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the Juncus Maritimus
or sea rush [2]. In his book A History of Writing, Steven Roger
Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen
might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the
First Dynasty or about 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be used until
the Middle Ages although they were slowly replaced by quills from
about the 7th century.
The quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and then introduced into Europe by around 700 AD. It was
used in 1787 to write and sign the Constitution of the United States
of America. The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 on the northwest
bank of the Dead Sea date back to around 100 BC. At that time they
were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. After
the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans had difficulty in obtaining
reeds and began to use quills. There is a specific reference to
quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century.
Quill pens were used until the 19th century.
A bronze nib was found in the ruins of Pompei showing that metal nibs
were used in the year 79[4]. There is also a reference in Samuel
Pepys' diary for August 1663. A metal pen point was patented in 1803
but the patent was not commercially exploited. John Mitchell of
Birmingham started to mass produce pens with metal nibs in 1822[5],
and thereafter the quality of steel nibs had improved enough that dip
pens with metal nibs came into generalized use.
M. Klein and Henry W. Wynne received US patent #68445 in 1867 for an
ink chamber and delivery system in the handle of the fountain pen.
The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen dates back
to the 10th century. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of
Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and
was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered
it to the nib via gravity and capillary action. While a student in
Paris, Romanian Petrache Poenaru re-invented the fountain pen, which
the French Government patented in May 1827. Fountain pen patents and
production then increased in the 1850s, especially steel pens
produced by the same John Mitchell.
Printing
Woodblock printing on cloth appeared in Egypt by the 4th century,
though it is not clear if the Egyptian printing of cloth was learned
from China or developed separately. Block printing of text, called
tarsh in Arabic was developed in Arabic Egypt during the 9th-10th
centuries, mostly for prayers and amulets. It is unclear whether the
print blocks were made from metal or wood or other materials.[1] This
technique, however, appears to have had very little influence outside
of the Muslim world. Though Europe adopted woodblock printing from
the Muslim world, initially for fabric, the technique of metal block
printing was also unknown in Europe. Block printing later went out of
use in Islamic Central Asia after movable type printing was
introduced from China.
Algebra
While the word "algebra" comes from Arabic word (al-jabr, الجبر), its
origins can be traced to the ancient Babylonians,[1] who developed an
advanced arithmetical system with which they were able to do
calculations in an algebraic fashion. With the use of this system
they were able to apply formulas and calculate solutions for unknown
values for a class of problems typically solved today by using linear
equations, quadratic equations, and indeterminate linear equations.
By contrast, most Egyptians of this era, and most Indian, Greek and
Chinese mathematicians in the first millennium BC, usually solved
such equations by geometric methods, such as those described in the
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Sulba Sutras, Euclid's Elements, and The
Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. The geometric work of the
Greeks, typified in the Elements, provided the framework for
generalizing formulae beyond the solution of particular problems into
more general systems of stating and solving equations.
The Greek mathematicians Hero of Alexandria and Diophantus [2]
continued the traditions of Egypt and Babylon, but Diophantus's book
Arithmetica is on a much higher level.[3] Later, Arab and Muslim
mathematicians developed algebraic methods to a much higher degree of
sophistication. Although Diophantus and the Babylonians used mostly
special ad hoc methods to solve equations, Al-Khowarazmi was the
first to solve equations using general methods. He solved the linear
indeterminate equations, quadratic equations, second order
indeterminate equations and equations with multiple variable.
The word "algebra" is named after the Arabic word "al-jabr , الجبر" from
the title of the book al-Kitāb al-muḫtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-ğabr wa-l-
muqābala , الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة, meaning The book of Summary Concerning
Calculating by Transposition and Reduction, a book written by the
Islamic Persian mathematician, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
(considered the "father of algebra"), in 820. The word Al-Jabr means
"reunion". The Hellenistic mathematician Diophantus has traditionally
been known as the "father of algebra" but in more recent times there
is much debate over whether al-Khwarizmi, who founded the discipline
of al-jabr, deserves that title instead.[4] Those who support
Diophantus point to the fact that the algebra found in Al-Jabr is
slightly more elementary than the algebra found in Arithmetica and
that Arithmetica is syncopated while Al-Jabr is fully rhetorical.[5]
Those who support Al-Khwarizmi point to the fact that he introduced
the methods of "reduction" and "balancing" (the transposition of
subtracted terms to the other side of an equation, that is, the
cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation) which
the term al-jabr originally referred to,[6] and that he gave an
exhaustive explanation of solving quadratic equations,[7] supported
by geometric proofs, while treating algebra as an independent
discipline in its own right.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The 218
To the Republican Men and Women in the 111th Congress;
The story of "The 300" was about the Spartans that stood at Thermopylae against overwhelming odds and fought to save their country while knowing that they themselves would lose this battle. Their willingness to join the battle against all odds saved Greece.
There are 218 Republicans in both houses of Congress and they face a similar choice today. All are not trained to be warriors as the 300 Spartans were but they nevertheless need to stand together to save their country.
So far the Democrats (or Persians ) have
- taken over the banking system
- taken over the automobile industry
- begun to demonize and disenfranchise any who disagree or oppose the government
- weakened our defenses
- emboldened our enemies
- threatened to take control of the energy industry
- taken over the housing industry
- committed to spending more money than any government in our history, indeed more than most of those governments combined
- they tell companies who than can hire and who they should fire
- they tell companies how much they can pay
- they have inserted a 5th column into the electoral process to undermine its fairness and the people's trust in it
- created dissension among people by deliberately not taxing vast numbers of people while demonizing and over-taxing those that are even slightly affluent
- they seek to take over education by paying the college tuition for every student.
- they seek to discredit and punish previous governments by prosecuting people for legally and faithfully doing their jobs
- they seek to remove democratic principles from the workplace
The 218 need to put on their armor and sharpen their spears and then stand shoulder-to-shoulder to fight Universal Health Care. That is our Thermopylae. We don't have enough votes to win but we need to take a stand. We need to oppose it in every way possible! Speeches on the floor of the House and Senate Chambers )not cya articles read into the Congressional Record)! Meetings in their home districts and states. Letters to the editors of major newspapers and blogs. Work with all types of electronic media to get the word out. Vote no to every presentation and piece of any Universal Health Care bill.
This does not mean offering an alternative. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE FOR THIS KIND OF PLAN IN A DEMOCRATIC FREE MARKET REPUBLIC! The basic assumption is wrong and must be opposed, not compromised. Filibuster, offer killer amendments, use procedural rules to slow the process. DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE!
Will we win? Probably not, we a re outnumbered. But the battle can delay the march of tyranny until more people can understand the threat. The battle can inspire the next wave of fighters for liberty. A heroic stand has made the difference many times throughout history. Clear battle lines and heroic warriors become the models and beacons for those who follow.
Be a hero! Stand at the Gates of Fire and make us, your constituents, proud!
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