'I was not a particularly small child. I was the one who always got picked to play Bethlehem in the school nativity.'
Jo Brand (July 23 1957-)
Picture: Craig Sugden
Early printed mathematical tablesIn 1483, Tabulae Alphonsinae (“Alphonsine Tables”) was published by German printer Erhard Ratdolt in Venice. The Alphonsine Tables were among the earliest mathematical tables to be printed. They were calculated from 1262 to 1272 by about 50 astronomers, human computers, at Toledo, Spain. The tables were compiled at the behest of King Alfonso X of Castile and León. They were based on Latin translations of the Tables of the Cordoban by the 11th-century mathematician and astronomer Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (also known as Arzachel), who lived in Toledo, Castile, Al-Andalus (now Spain). His original Spanish text no longer existed. The new versions of the tables were revised and improved, from the later Latin versions, yet still applying the Ptolemaic description of celestial motion.« |
