• DOI:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1987.tb37193.x
• Corpus ID: 84491987

A Late‐Babylonian Procedure Text for Mars, and Some Remarks on Retrograde Arcs

@article{Aaboe1987ALP,
  title={A Late‐Babylonian Procedure Text for Mars, and Some Remarks on Retrograde Arcs},
  author={Asg{\'e}r Aaboe},
  journal={Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences},
  year={1987},
  volume={500}
}

• A. Aaboe
• Published 1 June 1987
• History
• Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

FIRST MET E. S. Kennedy (or al-Kindi) in the autumn of 1953 at Brown UniI versity. He lectured on the zij of the archcomputer al-K&hi to an audience consisting of Neugebauer and me, and Neugebauer retaliated by talking about ”Odds and Ends” to Kindi and me. Someone I think it was Kindi’s father-inlaw said it reminded him of two haberdashers selling shirts to each other to keep the volume up. Though witty, the remark was far off the mark, for there was enormous profit involved, at least for me. It was here I was introduced to Islamic science. The sessions, though small, were the very opposite of quiet and passive, and I do not believe that I have ever learned as much in a like time interval as in these two seminars. From then on, at least until Kindi’s retirement, time was reckoned in Kindiads, intervals of four years after which the Kindis would reappear in this country (as time went on the Kindiads seemed to grow shorter). The Kindis became firm friends, and whenever we met it seemed irrelevant how long it had been since last time. In 1968 I had the good fortune to visit the Kindis in Lebanon-in both Beirut and Ainab -and would have been embarrassed by their generous hospitality had it not been so cheerfully offered. They showed me the delights of their adopted country, and I took part in their family life (it was the year, I remember only too well, when Kindi took up the French horn Doppelhorn, in Neugebauer’s terminology). On this occasion I offer the following little piece of work as a token of my gratitude, admiration, and affection.