| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 1007-1008 |
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Salih Zeki
Hüseyin Gazi Topdemir
Born Istanbul, (Turkey),
1864
Died Istanbul, (Turkey),
1921
Salih
Zeki was one of the most important mathematicians of the late Ottoman period.
He was the founder of the mathematics, physics, and astronomy departments
of Istanbul University and was also one of the first modern Turkish scholars
to undertake research on the history of science in Turkey. After the death
of his parents, his grandmother sent him to Dārüsssafaka (school for
orphans) when he was ten. After graduating first in his class in 1882, Salih
Zeki was assigned to the Post and Telegraph Ministry (Administration). In
1884, the ministry decided to train expert cable engineers and physicists
in Europe, and so he, along with several of his friends, was sent to Paris.
After studying electrical engineering at the École Polytechnique in Paris,
Salih Zeki returned to Istanbul in 1887 and started working at his former
workplace as an electrical engineer and inspector. At the same time, he taught
physics and chemistry at the Faculty of Political Sciences (1889–1900). He
also served as the director of the observatory (1895) and as a member of the
board of the Ministry of Education (1908). After the declaration of the Second
Constitutional Government, Salih Zeki was appointed in 1910 as the principal
of the Galatasaray High School. In 1912, he became Under Secretary of the
Ministry of Education and in 1913 the president of Istanbul University. In
1917, he resigned as the president but continued to be a professor at the
University in the Faculty of Sciences until his death.
Salih
Zeki played an important role in the construction and administration of the
new State Observatory (Rasadhane‐i Amire), this approximately 300 years
after the establishment of an observatory in Istanbul in 1575 by Taqī
al‐Dīn. With the support of the French government, an observatory
was opened in Istanbul in 1868, whose purpose was to disseminate weather forecasts
to other meteorological centers via cable. Aristide Coumbary (Coumbary
Efendi), who had come to Turkey to develop the telegraph cable network, was
appointed as the director. This observatory, which is the forerunner of today's
Kandilli Observatory, sent Coumbary Efendi as the Ottoman delegate to the
International Meteorological and Astronomical Congress that was held in Vienna
in 1873; in accordance with decisions taken at the congress, official ties
were established with other observatories in Europe. Every year, weather forecast
summaries and reports on earthquakes that occurred in Ottoman territories
were published based on the observations made at this observatory. Approximately
ten meteorological stations were affiliated with this observatory when it
was first established, and these stations reported their daily observations
via cable to the observatory. The central office in Istanbul forwarded
these observations, also via cable, to observatories in Paris, Berlin,
Vienna, Saint Petersburg, and Hungary and received their reports in the same
manner. At the same time, these data were entered on synoptic maps on a daily
basis. The observatory council, comprising three persons, also undertook to
determine time, longitudes and latitudes, and magnetic declination.
After
Coumbary, Salih Zeki was appointed as the director of the observatory. After
Salih Zeki's appointment as the president of Istanbul University, the observatory
moved to Maçka, to the building facing the Artillery School. On 12 March 1909,
during the Young Turk revolution, the observational equipment and seismographs
at Maçka were mostly destroyed. What was salvaged was later given to Kabatas
High School. Now Under Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Salih Zeki
recommended Mehmed Fatin Gökmen, one
of the leading scientists at the time, to be director of the observatory.
Assuming his duties in 1910, Gökmen was charged with establishing a new observatory;
this was accomplished in 1911 with the building of the Kandilli Observatory,
which is still in operation today.
Among Salih
Zeki's main works in astronomy are a New Cosmography (Istanbul, 1915)
and an Abridged Cosmography (Istanbul, 1916). He also wrote a basic
physics textbook, Hikmet‐i Tabiiyye (Istanbul, 1896), that explained
the concepts of general and applied physics and was used as one of the basic
textbooks in physics education in Turkey for many years. In history of science,
he composed the Asar‐ı Bakiye, which was written to extol
the successes of Muslim scientists, particularly in the fields of mathematics
and astronomy. It contains accounts of the historical development of mathematics,
algebra, geometry, and astronomy. Salih Zeki wrote this five‐volume
book by using the works of Western historians of science such as J. E. Montucla,
P. Tannery, and M. Cantor as well as original texts in the libraries of Istanbul.
The first volume, which deals with plane and spherical geometry, and the second
volume, which takes up algebra, were published in 1913/1914; however, his
third, fourth, and fifth volumes, which deal with astronomy, were not published.
His Kamus‐i Riyaziyat (Dictionary of Mathematics), whose ostensible
purpose was to provide a dictionary of terms for mathematics and astronomy,
was also meant to introduce the biographies and works of mathematicians and
astronomers. The first two volumes out of the 12 volumes of this work were
published, but the other ten volumes remain in draft form. Finally, it is
worth mentioning that Salih Zeki also wrote articles for a number of newspapers
and magazines that introduced readers to scientific and history of science
topics.
Selected References
Adıvar, A. (1982). Adnan. Osmanlı Türklerinde İlim.
Istanbul.
——— (1992). “Salih
Zeki ve Asar‐ı Bakiye.” Bilim Tarihi, no. 11: 3–8.
Bursalı, Mehmed Tahir (1923). Osmanlı Müellifleri.
Vol. 3, pp. 279–281. Istanbul, 1342 H.
İhsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin et al. (1997). Osmavnlı
Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi (OALT) (History of astronomy literature
during the Ottoman period). Vol. 2, pp. 707–709 (no. 546). Istanbul: IRCICA.
Saraç, Celal (1992). “Salih Zeki Bey'in Bazı Makaleleri.”
Bilim Tarihi, no. 7: 3–9.
——— (2001). Salih
Zeki Bey Hayatı ve Eserleri, edited by Yesim Isıl Ülman. Istanbul.
Tekeli, S., E. Kahya, M. Dosay, R. Demir, H. G. Topdemir, and
Y. Unat (2001). Bilim Tarihine Giris. Ankara.