Bernard Carra de Vaux

Bernard Carra de Vaux (born February 3, 1867 in Bar-sur-Aube , † December 28, 1953 in Nice ) was a French Arabist and mathematician and mathematician.

Carra de Vaux completed his school days at the Collège Stanislas and studied at the École polytechnique . In 1890, at the age of 23, he became a professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris . After study trips to Anatolia (1891 and 1897) and the USA, he became an active member of the Société asiatique . In 1896 he founded the magazine Revue de l'Orient chrétien together with Charles-Jean-Melchior de Vogüé and other personalities and became its secretary. In March 1896 he made a lecture on the Hamidian massacre of the Armenians . At the height of the Dreyfus Affair , he gave a lecture on Zionism and anti-Semitism at the Institut Catholique in 1898 .

His wide-ranging interests also extended to Arabic music , and so he took part in a congress on Arabic music in 1932, in collaboration with Rodolphe d'Erlanger , which King Fu'ad I organized in Cairo .

His main work is the five-volume Les penseurs de l'Islam (Paris 1921 to 1926), with information on natural scientists and mathematicians (Volume 2), in which he speaks out against Louis Massignon , among others . In 1892 he published a study on the Arabic editions of Heron of Alexandria (Quosta ibn Luqa, Abu l-Wafa ) in the Journal asiatique (Volume 19, pp. 408-471 ). He also published studies on the educational system in the United States and on the Etruscan language .

Works (selection)

• Les penseurs de l'Islam (Paris 1921 to 1926). 5 volumes

I: Les Souverains. L'Histoire et la philosophie politique.

II: Les Géographes. Les sciences mathématiques et naturelles.

III: L'Exégèse. La tradition et la jurisprudence.

IV: La Scolastique. La Théologie et la mystique. La Musique.

V: Les Sectes. Le Libéralisme modern.

literature

• Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph J. Scriba (eds.): Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002, p. 391