The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh c15.s3.13

c15.s3.13

The European astronomers were, perhaps, not quite so bound by tradition as were the Hindus and the Arabs. The death of the Ptolemaic theory and the invention of the telescope gave a great impetus to research, and the European astronomers largely discarded the methods of their predecessors. They recognised the inevitability of observational error, and devised means to counteract it; they were forced to consider, as of great importance, facility of observation, and gradually they devised instruments of types, unimaginable to their Arabic teachers.