Adelard of Bath

Adelard of Bath was an English scholar of the early twelfth century who studied at Tours, taught at Laon and then travelled for about seven years through Salerno, Sicily, Cilicia, Syria and Palestine before returning to Bath. He learned Arabic and became one of the translators who carried Arabic and Greek learning into Latin. His Latin versions of Euclid's Elements, made from Arabic sources, served for centuries as the chief geometry textbooks of the West, and he also translated al-Khwarizmi's astronomical tables and wrote on the abacus and the astrolabe. Arithmetic works and a treatise on arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy are attributed to him, and his Quaestiones naturales gathers seventy-six scientific discussions drawn from Arabic science.