Among the ancient Hellenes an outstanding personality wasClaudius Ptolemy. Interesting facts from the life of this scientist indicate his great mind and abilities to the most diverse sciences. Astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, geographer. In addition to these sciences he studied music, studied eyesight and dealt with issues of demography.
Who is Claudius Ptolemy?
The life of this ancient Greek scientist is unknownalmost nothing. His biography remains for historians a secret. No sources have yet been found, in which Ptolemy was mentioned, interesting facts from the life of this man have been lost.
The place and date of his birth, to what genus hewhether he was married, whether he had children, nothing is known about this. We only know that he lived approximately from 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 was engaged in astronomical observations.
A lot of controversy among scientists raises the question:to which genus belonged Ptolemy. 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.
Proceedings of the scientist, surviving to the present day
Till our time many scientific works of this ancient Greek have reached. They became for historians the main sources of study of his life.
"The Great Assembly" or "Almagest" is the main workscientist. This monumental work of 13 books can rightfully be called an encyclopedia of ancient astronomy. Also in it there are chapters devoted to mathematics, namely trigonometry.
"Optics" - 5 books, the pages of which are set outthe theory of the nature of vision, the refraction of rays and visual illusions, the properties of light, flat and convex mirrors. The laws of reflection are also described there.
"The doctrine of harmony" - work in 3 books.Unfortunately, the script has not reached our days. We can only get acquainted with the abridged Arabic translation, from which "Harmonica" was later translated into Latin.
"Four-knitting" - work on demography, which sets out the observations of Ptalomei on life expectancy, given the division of age categories.
"Manual tables" - chronology of governmentRoman emperors, Macedonian, Persian, Babylonian and Assyrian kings from 747 BC. before the period of life of Claudius himself. This work has become very important for historians. The fidelity of its data is indirectly confirmed by other sources.
"Tetrabiblos" - the treatise is devoted to astrology, describes the movement of celestial bodies, their influence on the weather and on humans.
"Geography" - a collection of geographical information of antiquity in 8 books.
Lost works
The great scientist was Ptolemy. Interesting facts from his books became the main source of astronomical knowledge right up to Copernicus. Unfortunately, some of his works were lost.
Geometry - in this area was written at least 2 essays, traces of which could not be found.
Work on 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 a degree into minutes and seconds.
The laws of light refraction described by them are very close to the modern conclusions of scientists.
Claudius Ptolemy is the author of many reference books thatwas new in those days. He summarized the works of Hipparchus - the greatest astronomer of antiquity, based on his observations, a star catalog. His works on geography can also be represented by a definite reference book in which he summarized all the knowledge at that time.
It was Ptolemy who invented the astrolabon, which became the prototype of the ancient astrolabe, a device for measuring latitude.
Other interesting facts about Ptolemy - he for the first time gives instructions on how to represent the world map on the sphere. Without a doubt, his work became the basis for creating the globe.
Many modern historians emphasize thatPtolemy with a stretch can be called a scientist. Of course, he made several important discoveries of his own, but most of his works are a clear and competent presentation of the discoveries and observations of other scientists. He did the titanic work, collecting all the data together, analyzing and making his own corrections. Ptolemy himself never put his authorship under his writings.
