From the Archives: Prince Henry the So-called Navigator
I currently have my head down trying to finish a big project that I’m excited about. Instead of driving myself crazy trying to write blog posts at the same time or, worse, “going dark” I’ll be running some of my favorite posts from the past for the next little while. Enjoy. And I’ll see you soon.
I’ve been thinking about Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal today, and re-reading bits of Peter Russell’s excellent biography, Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life
You remember Prince Henry. He’s the first in a series of names that you learned in grade school: Prince Henry the Navigator, Columbus, Dias, Magellan–maybe Henry Hudson if your teacher was into the Great Explorers and the Age of Discovery.
If you got hooked, you trotted down to the school library and checked out a biography–or three. (Not that I admit to having done anything of the sort.) They introduced you to the princely scholar who founded a school on the coast of Portugal where he taught new arts of navigation to his sailors. The visionary who sent men out explore the cost of Africa with the goal of reaching India. The gifted mathematician whose theories made oceanic navigation possible. The dynamic symbol of Portugal’s imperial destiny. In short, a heroic figure a nerd could love.
Not surprisingly, the story told in a biography suitable for a ten-year-old is little more than a series of half-truths. Even the nickname “the Navigator” is a misnomer, invented by nineteenth century historians eager to establish the Portuguese grandson of John of Gaunt as the forefather of British maritime success. In fact, the prince’s only personal experience of seafaring was trips along the Portuguese post and the occasional short hop to Morocco.
Henry was an ambitious prince, a would-be Crusader, a celibate Christian knight, a talented administrator, and a shrewd businessman. For more than forty years he funded expeditions of exploration along the west coast of Africa, pushing Portuguese seamen to sail further than they ever had before. By providing the financial support and intellectual stimulus for Portugal’s voyages of discovery, Prince Henry the Navigator transformed Portugal from a small, impoverished nation into Europe’s first maritime empire. Now that I think about it, a hero that a grown-up nerd can still admire.
Go, Henry.
From The Archives: Al-Khwarizmi Does The Math
I currently have my head down trying to finish a big project that I’m excited about. Instead of driving myself crazy trying to write blog posts at the same time or, worse, “going dark” I’ll be running some of my favorite posts from the past for the next little while. Enjoy. And I’ll see you soon.
Commemorative stamp in honor of al-Khwarizmi issued by the Soviet Union in 1983
Quick: multiply DVII by XVIII. Before you could work the problem you translated it into Arabic numbers didn’t you?
The person you can thank, or blame, for your ability to multiply and divide is the mathematician and astronomer Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (ca. 783-847), whose name lives on in a mangled form as “algorithm. (Honest. Take a moment to sound it out.)
We know very little about al-Khwarizmi’s life. His name suggests he was born in the region of Khwarazm in what is now Uzbekistan. There are suggestions that he was a Zoroastrian, who may have converted to Islam.
We know a lot about al-Khwarizmi’s work as a scholar in al-Mansur’s court in Baghdad. He introduced what were then called “Hindu numerals” to the Muslim world. He produced an important astronomical chart (zij) that made it possible to calculate the positions of the sun, the moon and the major planets and to tell time based on stellar and solar observations.
Al-Khwarizmi’s most important contribution to science was a ground-breaking mathematical treatise: al-Kitab al-Mukhtasar fi Hisab al-Jebr wal-Muqabala. The title translates to The Compendium on Calculation by Restoration and Balancing, but the book is most often referred to as al-jebr, or algebra. His treatise was a combination of mathematical theory and practical examples related to inheritances, property division, land measurements, and canal digging. He was the inventor both of quadratic equations and the dreaded word problem. (Some of his word problems became classics, which meant they were still giving schoolboys grief several centuries later.)
So, the next time you need to calculate “how long it will take for two cars to meet in Dubuque if one car leaves Minneapolis going 60 miles an hour and the other leaves Peoria traveling 75 miles an hour?” remember to thank al-Khwarizmi.
From The Archives: Why I Want To Go To Omaha
I currently have my head down trying to finish a big project that I’m excited about. Instead of driving myself crazy trying to write blog posts at the same time or, worse, “going dark” I’ll be running some of my favorite posts from the past for the next little while. Enjoy. And I’ll see you soon.
Aquatint by Karl Bodmer. Fort Pierre on the Missouri and the adjacent prairies c. 1833
Why is Omaha on my travel list? Two words, okay three: The Bodmer Collection.
In 1832, German naturalist Prince Maximilian zu Weid-Neuweid led one of the earliest expeditions to the American West.* As anyone who has snapped a picture of the Grand Canyon or the Grand Bazaar knows, expeditions need to be recorded. Instead of a Canon Powershot, Prince Maximilian brought along Karl Bodmer, a young Swiss artist with a talent for watercolor.
Prince Maximilian and Bodmer traveled the rivers of the American West for two years, going from Saint Louis to North Dakota and back. They saw an Indian raid, a wild prairie fire, and herds of buffalo and elk at close range. They suffered through a harsh winter in North Dakota, trapped by snow and bitter cold. At one point their boat caught fire.
Bodmer painted through it all, even when it was so cold that his paints froze solid. He captured images of the landscape, the animals, and. most notably, the Native American peoples they met. Bodmer’s depictions of the early American West have been described as the visual equivalent of Lewis and Clark’s journals. Although originally intended as “notes” to Prince Maximilian’s account of their journey, Bodmer’s paintings and sketches are now seen as the most important work of the expedition.
Today the Bodmer Collection is housed at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. Put it on your list.
*Prince Maximilian wasn’t just a rich man with a yen for travel. He had a bee in his bonnet. He thought the native peoples of the Missouri and Mississippi river basins would help him prove that humankind developed from a single set of parents, presumably Adam and Eve.