Among the ancient Hellenes, a prominent figure was Claudius Ptolemy. Interesting facts from the life of this scientist testify to his great mind and ability to the most diverse sciences. Astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, geographer. In addition to these sciences, he studied music, studied vision, and dealt with demography.
Who is Claudius Ptolemy?
Almost nothing is known about the life of this ancient Greek scientist. His biography remains a mystery to historians. So far, no sources have been found in which Ptolemy would be mentioned, interesting facts from the life of this person have been lost.
The place and date of his birth, what kind of family he belonged to, whether he was married, had children - nothing is known about this. We only know that he lived from about the 90s to 170 AD, became famous after 130 AD, was a Roman citizen, lived for a long time in Alexandria (from 127 to 151 AD), where Engaged in astronomical observations.
A lot of controversy among scientists raises the question of what kind of family Ptolemy belonged to. Interesting facts from the life of the scientist speak in favor of the fact that he was a descendant of the royal family of the Ptolemies. However, this version does not have sufficient evidence.
The works of a scientist that have survived to this day
Many scientific works of this ancient Greek have survived to our time. They became for historians the main sources of study of his life.
The "Great Assembly" or "Almagest" is the main work of the scientist. This monumental composition of 13 books can rightfully be called the encyclopedia of ancient astronomy. It also has chapters on mathematics, namely trigonometry.
"Optics" - 5 books, on the pages of which a theory is presented about the nature of vision, about the refraction of rays and visual illusions, about the properties of light, about flat and convex mirrors. The laws of reflection are also described there.
"The Doctrine of Harmony" - work in 3 books. Unfortunately, the original has not reached our days. We can only get acquainted with the abridged Arabic translation, from which later "Harmonica" was translated into Latin.
"The Four Books" is a work on demography, which sets out the observations of Ptalome about life expectancy, and gives a separation of age categories.
“Handy Tables” is a chronology of the rule of Roman emperors, Macedonian, Persian, Babylonian and Assyrian kings from 747 BC until the life of Claudius himself. This work has become very important for historians. The fidelity of her data is indirectly confirmed by other sources.
"Tetrabiblos" - a treatise devoted to astrology, describes the movement of celestial bodies, their effect on weather and on man.
"Geography" - a set of geographical information of antiquity in 8 books.
Lost work
The great scientist was Ptolemy. Interesting facts from his books became the main source of astronomical knowledge up to Copernicus. Unfortunately, some of his writings have been lost.
Geometry - at least 2 compositions were written in this area, traces of which could not be found.
Work on the mechanics also existed. According to the Byzantine Encyclopedia of the 10th century, Ptolemy is the author of 3 books from this field of science. None of them have survived to our time.
Claudius Ptolemy: interesting facts from life
The scientist compiled a table of chords, it was he who first applied the division of the degree into minutes and seconds.
The laws of light refraction described by him are very close to the modern conclusions of scientists.
Claudius Ptolemy - the author of many reference books, which was new in those days. He summarized the works of Hipparchus, the greatest astronomer of antiquity, compiled a star catalog based on his observations. His works on geography can also be represented as a specific reference book in which he summarized all the knowledge available at that time.
It was Ptolemy who invented astrolabon, which became the prototype of ancient astrolabe - a device for measuring latitude.
Other interesting facts about Ptolemy - for the first time he gives instructions on how to depict a world map on a sphere. Without a doubt, his work became the basis for creating a globe.
Many modern historians emphasize that Ptolemy can hardly be called a scientist. Of course, he made several important discoveries of his own, but most of his works are a clear and competent account of the discoveries and observations of other scientists. He did a titanic work, collecting all the data together, analyzing and making his own corrections. Ptolemy himself never put his authorship under his writings.