astrolabes

Mo's eyes were now nicely fogged, he could see astrolabes in his head, and ancient maps and charts sprawled on the decks of creaking wooden ships.

X, Chapter 3: Morowitz

I saw a wonderful science tool museum with clockworks from the 17th century, astrolabes, telephones from the turn of the last century, and suchlike, started as a collection by a local baron/scientist.

Kassel, Goslar, Hannover, more Göttingen

I learned about gromas and chorobates, plane tables and astrolabes, theodolites and transits … and then tellurometers, total stations, inertial survey systems and, of course the Global Positioning Satellite system.

My speech to the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association AGM

TED talk on using a 13th-c. astrolabe: I have a distinct fondness for astrolabes.

Linky catch-up – Heuristic

I saw a wonderful science tool museum with clockworks from the 17th century, astrolabes, telephones from the turn of the last century, and suchlike, started as a collection by a local baron/scientist.

Kassel, Goslar, Hannover, more Göttingen

I learned about gromas and chorobates, plane tables and astrolabes, theodolites and transits … and then tellurometers, total stations, inertial survey systems and, of course the Global Positioning Satellite system.

My speech to the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association AGM

This keenness for geometry grows out of a fascination with mathematics—initiated by Muslim Abbasid rulers 750-1258 and exemplified by a case with astrolabes as well as astronomical and astrological illustrations—and a rejection of figural imagery in religious settings.

The Many Paths Toward an Islamic Aesthetic

Some were able to function as astrolabes, to give approximate positions of ships at sea.

Boing Boing

Concentric wheels with moveable rings, like those devised by Raymond Lull in the late 13th century, were commonly employed in medieval instruction; 154 for memory craft, they were often rendered in the guise of compatible mechanisms, such as astrolabes. 155 In addition to a series of alphamnemonic wheels, Publicius's treatise offers several examples of these recombinatorial diagrams, including a Porphyrian tree and a chessboard with its pieces. 156

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro

“We call them astrolabes, but, aye, I see what you mean.”

Aching for Always