_Wellcome_L0070081.jpg)
TheToledan Tables, orTables of Toledo, wereastronomical tables which were used to predict the movements of theSun,Moon andplanets relative to the fixed stars. They were a collection of mathematical tables that describe different aspects of the cosmos including prediction of calendar dates, times of cosmic events, and cosmic motion.[2]
The Toledan Tables were completed around 1080 by a group of Arabic astronomers atToledo, Spain. They had started as preexisting Arabic tables made elsewhere, and were numerically adjusted to be centered on the location of Toledo.[2][3] The Tables of Toledo were partly based on the work ofal-Zarqali (known to theWest as Arzachel), an Arab mathematician, astronomer, astronomy instrument-maker, and astrologer, who lived in Toledo. The tables were produced by a team whose membership is largely unknown, with the exception of al-Zarqali.
Toledo came under Christian Spanish rule in the mid-1080s, shortly after the tables were completed. A century later at Toledo, the Arabic-to-Latin translatorGerard of Cremona (1114–1187) translated for Latin readers theTables of Toledo, the most accurate compilation in Europe at the time. This collection of tables was influenced heavily by the work of earlier astronomers and tables such as that of Ptolematic tables and the work of al-Battānī.[4] What the Toledan Tables didn't derive from previous texts was their parameters for themean motion of celestial bodies. These parameters usesidereal co-ordinates which is different than other tables, Ptolemy's are tropical for instance.[2] During the mid-thirteenth century,Campanus of Novara constructed tables for the meridian of Novara from the Toledan tables of al-Zarqali.[5]
The original version of the ArabicToledan Tables have been lost but there is still over one hundred versions of the Latin translation which were used for aGreek translation of theToledan Tables, written inCyprus in the 1330s, likely by theGreek Cypriot scholarGeorge Lapithes.[6][7]
There are a fair amount of errors in the Toledan Tables' calculations. The Toledan Tables are almost entirely a collection of copies of other tables. Because of this, the many errors and discrepancies are primarily considered to be copy errors.[2]
The Toledan Tables were updated in the 1270s by theAlfonsine tables, which were produced at Toledo, in Spanish and Latin, from the original tables of two centuries earlier.[8] The descendants of the Toledan Tables, as updated with some corrections, were the most widely used astronomy tables in late medieval Latin astronomy. Although the compilers of the tables assumed the Earth was stationary at the center of the universe, the data in the tables was successfully used byCopernicus in the development of the model in which the Sun is stationary.
The Toledan Tables were used in the work of a man by the name of Isaac ben Joseph Israeli of Toledo. He used a collection of various Toledan Tables along with other sources to provide information on eclipses. These eclipses had been observed by R. Isaac ben Sid, who was known as one of the authors of the CastilianAlfonsine Tables. Because of this, it was thought that Isaac ben Joseph would speak about the Alfonsine Tables, however he makes no mention of these tables, instead he references the Toledan Tables.[9]
An important characteristic of a few of the Toledan Tables is that they listed the arguments of the planetary positions in half-degrees, making these tables twice as long as other tables which dealt in only full degrees.[10] These arguments were specifically found forSaturn,Venus andMercury.[2]The Toledan Tables were organized into categories such as:[11]
In modern astronomy, tables of movements of astronomical bodies are calledephemerides. These expand upon the ideas of the Toledan tables, and are used with modern computing methods to calculate where any celestial body will be at any point in time in relation to another celestial body. They are updated yearly byNASA to provide the accuracy needed for modern calculations. This expands upon the Alfonsine tables by using an updated analytical solution to the conics of the orbital bodies that more accurately map their orbits.[12]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
_Wellcome_L0070081.jpg){kind=link}