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Quote by Avicenna

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De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum, being sections of the Kitāb al-shifâ: The Latin and Arabic texts, edited with an English translation of the latter and with critical notes

De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum is a scholarly publication that brings together Latin and Arabic medical texts from the Kitāb al-shifā. The book offers an English translation of the Arabic sections, allowing for a cross-cultural examination of medical practices. It is enhanced by critical notes that facilitate a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural context of the texts. The volume is intended for researchers and students of medieval medicine and the intersection of Latin and Arabic scholarly traditions. more

Author

Avicenna
Avicenna

Avicenna, also known as Ibn Sina, was one of the most prominent philosophers and physicians in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. Born on August 9, 980, he had a profound impact on later generations. more

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“It must not be thought that it is ever possible to reach the interior earth by any perseverance in mining: both because the exterior earth is too thick, in comparison with human strength; and especially because of the intermediate waters, which would gush forth with greater impetus, the deeper the place in which their veins were first opened; and which would drown all miners.”

“Since, then, there is no objection to the mobility of the Earth, I think it must now be considered whether several motions are appropriate for it, so that it can be regarded as one of the wandering stars. For the fact that it is not the centre of all revolutions is made clear by the apparent irregular motion of the wandering stars, and their variable distances from the Earth, which cannot be understood in a circle having the same centre as the Earth.”

“The body of the Earth, large, sluggish and inapt for motion, is not to be disturbed by movement (especially three movements), any more than the Aetherial Lights [stars] are to be shifted, so that such ideas are opposed both to physical principles and to the authority of the Holy Writ which many time: confirms the stability of the Earth (as we shall discuss more fully elsewhere).”

“The earth in its rapid motion round the sun possesses a degree of living force so vast that, if turned into the equivalent of heat, its temperature would be rendered at least one thousand times greater than that of red-hot iron, and the globe on which we tread would in all probability be rendered equal in brightness to the sun itself.”

“The observations, so numerous and so important, of the pendulum as object are especially relevant to the length of its oscillations. Those that I propose to make known to the [Paris] Academy [of Sciences] are principally addressed to the direction of the plane of its oscillation, which, moving gradually from east to west, provides evidence to the senses of the diurnal movement of the terrestrial globe.”

“The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe.”