Jump to content

Talk:History of science and technology in Africa/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1

Fractal mathematics

I have removed this paragraph and instead suggest a mention of mathematical influence in art using the same citation (Eglash, Ron. African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 1999.). Nobody is ever seriously claiming that anybody understood anything of fractals in a mathematical sense until the late 19th century. Fractal-like forms are found in art of all cultures throughout history, which is why the mathematics are still used to formulate theories of aesthetics, but there is no mathematical knowledge behind this art. 99.135.144.233 (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You obviously have not read the book or even viewed the video on Ted, which is a synopsis of his book. I did not use the word mathematics or fractal geometry, Ron Eglash did. I am just re-iterating what the book said. Your claim that it can only be used in art and aesthetics is original research. You are expressing an opinion. If you can document your statement feel free to include it in the section. I will also refer you to the Ted video. The most complex implementation of fractal mathematics or fractal geometry is in African divination system which is not art or aesthetics as you would put it. Where I have erred is using words such as post modern, which is a term not used by the scholar. I will re-word to make it NPOV. I am assuming the portion of the intro you deleted fixed the following issue:
1.tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia
2.written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanup
If not point out inadequacies and correct. Kacembepower (talk) 07:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Start at cleanup

While a lot of this material is well researched, the language tends towards proving a point about the greatness of african science (which it is of course), and the whole article may qualify as Original research or Synthesis. having said that, i thought id take a (achulean) stab at clarifying and restructuring. i removed a lot of material in the "see also" section, as not directly related to the subject of this article. that helps tone down the synthesis issues a bit. remember, the articles on WP can help people who are doing research across disciplines, but we dont do the research ourselves. if someone wants to link numerous aspects of african, egyptian, islamic, african inspired art, architecture, music, physics, math, dance, literature, etc, they are welcome to use WP for material. do NOT, however, publish it here as one big article, which as i said this may end up being. and if someone publishes a definitive book linking all these subject areas, and that book is covered by reliable sources, then we COULD do an article on that book, and arguably on that broad subject. until someone else does it, though, we must wear blinders when writing articles to the subtle connections between things. ok, enough of this rant, back to boring editing... Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

No sir, you are seeing it as such. The article merely states all technological/scientific attainments from north to south of the continent, from the begining of man to the present in multiple areas. If the technological attainment is in itself great that is the trait of the technological/scientific attainment. It shows skills and know hows in multiple areas "architecture", "communication systems" not literature(the medium- script, drums, griots ), no music,no dance, the technical approach to art that has influenced others. What you see as Egyptian and Islamic are the passage of time. You can synthesize art, ideological philosophy, religion, and other abstracts. Science is about facts and can be sacrosanct, immutable until the facts don't add up. The article merely answers the question what did africa do and how did she do it in the various areas, such as mathematica, astronomy, warfare, art(technical approaches), commerce etc. It would be original research and synthesis if it was put together from multiple facts and not documented. If I said that the timbuktu manuscript might have information about african divination system that spread to the Maghreb and then to Europe that is original research and synthesis. That was not done. That is why I am in agreement in removing the comment about the Nubian script, that is original research.
Instead of removing the links to the African scientist, inventors, you could have created a list of African scientist, begin that process. I realize you see wikipedia as just an encyclopedia. I will argue within her encyclopedic rules, but wikipedia has transcended that. She is not just an encyclopedia. She has become a World Wide Web entity, like youtube, or dictionary.com a force that organizes, defines the forest of information on the web. Wikipedia has not realized that, an entity that could only be built by volunteers, amateur, enthusiasts, and professionals. No article should be deleted. Those that don't meet encyclopedic standard should or is too esoteric maybe placed in something called apochryphedia.Kacembepower (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

resource

Vast and Fertile Ground in Africa for Science to Take Root

141.218.36.43 (talk) 21:45, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Cyberbot II has detected that page contains external links that have either been globally or locally blacklisted. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed, or are highly innappropriate for Wikipedia. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's spam, or not a good link. If the link is a good link, you may wish to request whitelisting by going to the request page for whitelisting. If you feel the link being caught by the blacklist is a false positive, or no longer needed on the blacklist, you may request the regex be removed or altered at the blacklist request page. If the link is blacklisted globally and you feel the above applies you may request to whitelist it using the before mentioned request page, or request it's removal, or alteration, at the request page on meta. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. The whitelisting process can take its time so once a request has been filled out, you may set the invisible parameter on the tag to true. Please be aware that the bot will replace removed tags, and will remove misplaced tags regularly.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:

  • http://wysinger.homestead.com/canoe.html
    Triggered by \bwysinger\.homestead\.com\b on the local blacklist
  • http://wysinger.homestead.com/temples.html
    Triggered by \bwysinger\.homestead\.com\b on the local blacklist

If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.

From your friendly hard working bot.—cyberbot II NotifyOnline 19:49, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Problem with first sentence

"Science and technology in Africa has unfolded since the dawn of human history" seems just wrong. Science is not the same thing as technology and there are zero sources backing this claim. Doug Weller (talk) 20:11, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I just took a stab at fixing this, but feel free to adjust. Ninafundisha (talk) 20:20, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, that's much better. Doug Weller talk 20:29, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

created Social science section

I have created a new section about social science in regards of Education history of Africa so it was not need to be removed entirely Ahendra (talk) 19:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 external links on History of science and technology in Africa. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 00:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Metalurgy

What about mentioning the early invention of blast furnaces in Tanzania, also mentioned on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy#Africa_south_of_the_Sahara ? Helenuh (talk) 19:45, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on History of science and technology in Africa. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:28, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on History of science and technology in Africa. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:21, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Open access to scholarly communication in Africa

  • A list of open access repositories in Africa was deleted from en:Wikipedia on 9 April 2018. The wikicode is here.
    • Included countries in North Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia.
    • Included countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. -- Oa01 (talk) 12:44, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Dubious claim that the walls of Benin is the largest man made structure

The walls are impressive, but not even close to what makes up many man made structures, such as the power grid of Europe or North America, or the rail roads that span Europe, Asia and Africa, combined. Since it's trivial to point out examples that are far larger, I've marked the claim dubious. If there really is a reason for claiming that the walls of Benin are the largest man made structure, it has to be clarified why the railroads of Europe alone, isn't considered larger. 5.186.78.167 (talk) 18:06, 15 April 2024 (UTC)