A Survey of European Astronomical Tables in the Late Middle Ages

Specialist in medieval and early modern astronomy Chabas (emeritus, U. Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) and specialist in ancient and medieval astronomy Goldstein (emeritus, U. of Pittsburgh) classify and illustrate the many astronomical tables compiled from about the 10th century to the early 16th century in the Latin West. By figuring out the computations and the underlying algorithms, they say, modern scholars can learn much about the transmission of ideas and computational techniques during the period. Their topics include trigonometry and spherical astronomy, mean motions and radices, latitude visibility of the moon and the planets, eclipses, and astrology. This is the first book analyzing and comparing the tables, and will likely become a foundation reference. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jose Chabas, Ph. D. (1998), University of Barcelona, Spain, is University Professor Emeritus at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. He has focused his work on astronomy during the Middle Ages and the early modern period, with a special emphasis on astronomical tables.Bernard R. Goldstein, Ph.D. (1963) in History of Mathematics, Brown University, is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. He has published extensively on ancient and medieval astronomy, based on sources in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic.