Mathematical Instruments Used in the Military Engineering Academies of the Ottomans

Abstract

At the end of 17th century and during 18th century, in order to train elite cadets who were also engineers, several military engineering Academies had been established one after another. Nevertheless, it coincided with the same period that the Ottomans were continuously defeated in several wars around the empire and started to lose its territory. Therefore, they have realized that they fell behind of the war technology of the Western militaries. In order to catch up with their Western rivals, they had to reform their education system. They sent several students to abroad, they started to translate Western books and last but not the least, they have established Western style military academies of engineering. They also invited foreign teachers in order to give education in these institutes and they have consulted them while there were preparing the curriculum. Establishment of these academies was not too late when we compared it with the foundation dates of such academies around the world. But because of the conflict between traditional teachers who were supporting the classical madrasa (a kind of religious high education institute) education system and modern teachers, the fully functioning of these academies took more time than it was actually needed.

The main aim in this article is to examine mathematical instruments used in such military academies. For that, the inventory lists of these Academies had been examined and briefly presented. Also, the geometric instruments mentioned in Chief instructor Ishaq Efendi’s (1748–1834) Compendium of Mathematical Sciences mentioned briefly in this article. Meanwhile the obscure Ottoman terminology about the name of the instruments tried to be revealed.