Person: Gherard Of Cremona
Gherard of Cremona was an Italian mathematician who worked in Spain and translated mathematical works from Arabic into Latin.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- For this reason Gherard went to Toledo in Spain where his intention was to learn Arabic so he could read Ptolemy's Almagest Ⓣ(The major thesis: from the Arabic 'al-majisti' -- the Arabic translation of the Greek 'Mathematike Syntaxis' later translated into Latin as 'Magna Syntaxis') since no Latin translations existed at that time.
- Although we do not have detailed information of the date when Gherard went to Spain, he was certainly there by 1144.
- In all over a period of forty years, Gherard translated around eighty works from Arabic to Latin.
- In addition, of course, Gherard translated the Almagest but there is a slight puzzle over this.
- We know that Gherard went to Toledo with the intention of translating the Almagest Ⓣ(The major thesis: from the Arabic 'al-majisti' -- the Arabic translation of the Greek 'Mathematike Syntaxis' later translated into Latin as 'Magna Syntaxis'), and it seems beyond belief that such a prolific translator would have waited until he was sixty-one years old before completing what he considered his most important task.
- It seems hard to believe that, given the size of the task that he undertook, Gherard would have had much time for anything other than translating.
- One of the decisions made by Gherard in his translating was to render the Arabic word for sine into the Latin sinus, from where our sine function comes.
- It is interesting to realise that had Gherard made a different decision in his translation, this function, which is well-known to all who have made even a brief study of mathematics, would be known by a different name today.
Born 1114, Cremona (now Italy). Died 1187, Toledo, Castile (now Spain).
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Ancient Greek, Astronomy, Origin Italy
Mentioned in:
Epochs: 1
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
