Geography Of Japan Essays - Japanese Archipelago, Hokkaido

Geography of Japan Geography of Japan Perhaps more than any other nation in the world, Japan is shaped by its geography to a tremendous extent. Technically classified as an archipelago, Japan is a curved chain of four islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, plus over a thousand smaller islands). However, it is first and foremost an island nation, a fact which isolated Japan from the rest of the world. The second largest influence in Japanese geography is the size of the nation. The total area of Japan proper is a little under 143 thousand square miles; the contiguous United States spreads across just over 3 million. To say that Japan is crowded with its 130 million people would be an understatement. But add that to the fact that seventy-five percent of the nation is hilly or mountainous, and the wide open spaces for living and working are even more crammed. The mountainous terrain, lack of lowlands and plains all have had far-reaching consequences on the development of Japan and its people. No study of them is accurate without a study of Japan's geography. Before Japan was unified, many different clans held power over different parts of the islands. Centralizing power proved difficult because of the physical disunion. Once a nation, though, Japan's island geography kept Japan isolated from even its closest neighbor, Korea. Being a group of islands was the main reason Japan could maintain its isolationist ways until just a century ago. It was also the main reason for a strong maritime outlook in the Japanese. It has over 17 thousand miles of coastline, which means almost all the centers of population (lowlands) have sea frontage. The term "center of population" isn't fair to the "non-centers" of population. Except in the northern island of Hokkaido, all parts of Japan are still crammed with over 300 persons per square mile. The centers have population densities of over 512 persons per square mile. The seventh most populous nation in the world lives in an area smaller than the state of Montana. This circumstance fed Japanese expansionism in the early twentieth century, and is now a daily challenge for the Japanese people and leaders as they deal with an ever-shrinking space dilemma. Nowhere is the dilemma more dramatically playing out than in the big cities. Japan's six largest cities were built in its only two major plains. There are simply no more suitable flatlands to build additional cities. The rest of Japan is cast with high mountains with considerable volcanic activity. Earthquakes, then, have become a commonplace occurrence in the daily life of many Japanese. In 1981, only 14.6 percent of Japan was arable. Rice, Japan's most important food crop for centuries, is intensively cultivated on terraced hillsides because there are not enough flat paddy fields to feed the whole nation. A hard-working Japanese peasantry has resulted from the agricultural challenges.

Al-Khwarizmi, a Pioneering Astronomer and Mathematician

Al-Khwarizmi, a Pioneering Astronomer and Mathematician Al-Khwarizmi​ was also known as Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. He was known for writing major works on astronomy and mathematics that introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals and the idea of algebra to European scholars. The Latinized version of his name gave us the term algorithm, and the title of his most famous and important work gave us the word algebra. What Professions Did Al-Khwarizami Have? Writer, scientist, astronomer, geographer,  and mathematician. Places of Residence Asia, Arabia Important Dates Born:  c. 786Died:  c. 850 About Al-Khwarizmi Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born in Baghdad in the 780s, around the time Harun al-Rashid became the fifth Abbasid caliph. Haruns son and successor, al-Mamun, founded an academy of science known as the House of Wisdom (Dar al-Hikma). Here, research was conducted and scientific and philosophic treatises were translated, particularly Greek works from the Eastern Roman Empire. Al-Khwarizmi became a scholar at the House of Wisdom. At this important center of learning, al-Khwarizmi studied algebra, geometry, and astronomy. He wrote influential texts on the subjects. He appears to have received the specific patronage of al-Mamun, to whom he dedicated two of his books: his treatise on algebra and his treatise on astronomy. Al-Khwarizmis treatise on algebra, al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr waÊ ¾l-muqabala (â€Å"The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing†), was his most important and well-known work. Elements of Greek, Hebrew, and Hindu works that were derived from Babylonian mathematics of more than 2,000 years earlier were incorporated into al-Khwarizmis treatise. The term al-jabr in its title brought the word algebra into western use when it was translated into Latin several centuries later.   Although it sets forth the basic rules of algebra, Hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala had a practical objective: to teach. As al-Khwarizmi put it: ...what is easiest and most useful in arithmetic, such as men constantly require in cases of inheritance, legacies, partition, lawsuits, and trade, and in all their dealings with one another, or where the measuring of lands, the digging of canals, geometrical computations, and other objects of various sorts and kinds are concerned. Hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala included examples as well as algebraic rules in order to help the reader with these practical applications. Al-Khwarizmi also produced a work on Hindu numerals. These symbols, which we recognize as the Arabic numerals used in the west today, originated in India and had only recently been introduced into Arabic mathematics. Al-Khwarizmis treatise describes the place-value system of numerals from 0 to 9 and may be the first known use of a symbol for zero as a place-holder (a blank space had been used in some methods of calculation). The treatise provides methods for arithmetical calculation, and it is believed that a procedure for finding square roots was included. Unfortunately, the original Arabic text is lost. A Latin translation exists, and though it is thought to be considerably changed from the original, it did make an important addition to western mathematical knowledge. From the word Algoritmi in its title, Algoritmi de numero Indorum (in English, Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning), the term algorithm came into western usage. In addition to his works in mathematics, al-Khwarizmi made important strides in geography. He helped create a world map for al-Mamun and took part in a project to find the Earths circumference, in which he measured the length of a degree of a meridian in the plain of Sinjar. His book Kitab surat al-ará ¸  (literally The Image of the Earth, translated as Geography), was based on the geography of Ptolemy and provided the coordinates of approximately 2,400 sites in the known world, including cities, islands, rivers, seas, mountains, and general geographical regions. Al-Khwarizmi improved on Ptolemy with more accurate values for sites in Africa and Asia, and for the length of the Mediterranean Sea.   Al-Khwarizmi wrote yet another work that made it into the western canon of mathematical studies: a compilation of astronomical tables. This included a table of sines, and either its original or an Andalusian revision was translated into Latin. He also produced two treatises on the astrolabe, one on the sundial and one on the Jewish calendar, and wrote a political history that included the horoscopes of prominent people. The precise date of al-Khwarizmis death is unknown. Sources Agarwal, Ravi P. Creators of Mathematical and Computational Sciences. Syamal K. Sen, 2014th Edition, Springer, November 13, 2014. OConnor, J. J. Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi. E. F. Robertson, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland, July 1999. Surhone, Lambert M. (Editor). The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing. Miriam T. Timpledon, Susan F. Marseken, VDM Publishing, August 10, 2010. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Al-Khwarizmi. Encyclopaedia Britannica, July 20, 1998.