Fatima of Madrid
Feb. 13th, 2011 03:05 pmShe is an astronomer, February:
On the calendar there's also an artist's impression of Fatima using an astronomical instrument, an astrolabe I think.
I can't find anything about her on the internet in English that's not part of the calendar entry, though there's more about her father under various forms of his name. His wikipedia entry doesn't mention Fatima.
Fatima of Madrid
X-XI Centuries
Muslim astronomer from the X-XI centuries, she was the daughter of the astronomer and scientist at large Maslama al-Mayriti, whose name means "man from Madrid". She wrote several works, which are known as "Corrections from Fatima". She worked with her father on her astronomical and mathematical investigations. Together, they edited and corrected "The Astronomical Tables of al-Khwarizmi", adjusting them to the meridian passing through Cordoba and using the capital city of the Califato (a territory under the jurisdiction of a caliph) as the "center of the world", i.e., as the reference point for all their calculations. They also worked on calendars, calculations of the true positions of the Sun, the Moon and the planets, tables of sine and tangents, spherical astronomy, astrological tables, parallaxes calculations, eclipses and Moon visibility.
She spent most of her life in Córdoba (Spain), the world-leading center of all knowledge at the time.
On the calendar there's also an artist's impression of Fatima using an astronomical instrument, an astrolabe I think.
I can't find anything about her on the internet in English that's not part of the calendar entry, though there's more about her father under various forms of his name. His wikipedia entry doesn't mention Fatima.