CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY Zoya Khan & Erika Harfmann
WHOClaudius Ptolmaeus, ancient Greco-Egyptian writer from Alexandria, Egypt.
Born in Alexandria, Egypt AD. 90
Died in the Roman Empire AD. 168
Age 77-78
He was a mathematician, well renowned astronomer, geographer as well as astrologer
Held roman citizenship indicating he was had a high status in the society of Egypt.
In the latter Arabic astronomers after debating where his origins dubbed him by his Arabic name,موسس Batlaymus
WHAT
Ptolemy was the author of Several groundbreaking Treatises which were used by Arab and European scientist, scholars and mathematicians.
4 of his most accomplished works which survived many millennia were the: Almagest-(astronomical treatise), Geography-( the in-depth discussion of the Greco-Roman geographical knowledge), including an Astrological treatises-( attempt to fuse the horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy)
These 4 books written by him became the basis for future advancement in these fields and have gone by the names, Apotelesmatika, Tetrabiblos, Quadripartitum
MATHEMATICS
Ptolemy's major impact in math was towards the area of Trigonometry.
His table of the length of chords in a circle is one of the earliest surviving pieces of trigonometric function
He applied fundamental theorems in spherical trigonometry to find the calculations of basic astronomical equations
He exploited the subject of Pythagoreanism
Established the Optic principle by measuring angles of incidence and reflection for planar and curved mirrors by setting it upon a graduated disk separated by degrees
GEOGRAPHYHis advancement in this area of expertise wasn't as famed as his contributions to math and astronomy
Geōgraphikē hyphēgēsis was his famed book which translated means Guide to Geography. It had all the information on how to draw maps of different portions of the world based on his contemporaries.
He didn't organize, sift or check the data he had when creating the maps.
He based his work off the maps of Marinus of Tyre; which helped to persevere his workings and findings
ASTRONOMY
Believed astronomy could be explained through mathematics
Created the Alamgest based of his beliefs on how the heavenly bodies moved
Created the the Geocentric Cosmology in which the Ptolemaic system.
The system stated that a unified system in which each heavenly body is attached to its own sphere and the set of spheres nested so that it extends without gaps from Earth to the celestial sphere.
Ptolemy taught later astronomers how to use dated, quantitative observations to revise cosmological models.
FUN FACTS
When Ptolemy created the map of the world based upon the current knowledge the Greco-Egyptians possessed, he drew the the entire earth much to small and Asia larger then needed. It was this inaccurate map that Columbus used to find the shorter route to Asia.
Discovered over 1000 stars and only 300 of them were newly discovered
Calculated positions of the planets
Some of his working dated back to almost the Byzantine era.
There is major discussion on whether the Optics was actually written by him or nah
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482098/
Ptolemy
http://www.watertown.k12.ma.us/cunniff/
americanhistorycentral/03ageofexploration/
Interesting_Fa.html