The biography of Ptolemy is brief


Discuss Claudius Ptolemy is the biography of Claudius Ptolemy - the famous astrologer, astronomer, mechanic, optics, geographer and theorist of music. Ptolemy is the author of an ancient monograph called "Almagest", which includes a complete collection of knowledge of those years about heavenly mechanics. Childhood and youth to this day have practically no information about the life of a famous scientist.

The contemporaries of the researcher avoided mentioning the name of Ptolemy in their works. Almost all information about the biography of Ptolemy is based on his own works. Scientists also drew information about mathematics from the works of physicist Philip Ball. Claudius lived in the city of Alexandria, on the territory of modern Egypt. To this day, the exact description of the appearance of the scientist has not been preserved.

Modern images of Ptolemy are collectively from ancient sculptures. The exact date of birth of the researcher also remains a mystery to our contemporaries. Judging by the Almagest, you can set the approximate date of the life of Ptolemy - - years. However, after this work, two more encyclopedias were written, on which the author worked for about ten years.

The name of the ancient scientist speaks of his Egyptian origin. The first name Claudius points to the Roman roots of the researcher. According to some biographical information, among the relatives of Ptolemy there were immigrants from Greece. Scientific activity was the first serious research of Ptolemy work called “Canopic inscription”. This work was carved on a stele made of stone in a suburb of Alexandria, in the city of Canop.

The inscriptions indicated astronomical parameters. Unfortunately, later the stele was destroyed, but the inscriptions from it were transferred to the manuscript. After clarifying some information, Ptolemy compiled an astronomical reference book, calling the work “improvised tables”. Interestingly, this reference book served as the main source of evidence of the theory of geocentrism.

According to this ancient theory, the celestial bodies rotated around the motionless earth. In subsequent years, Ptolemy wrote several more scientific books, among which “planetary hypotheses” occupy a special place. Here the scientist used a slightly different system of parameters of describing celestial bodies. This work mentions the term "ether" invented by Aristotle. However, the best work of Ptolemy is rightfully considered Almagest.

In this book, the researcher with amazing accuracy calculated the distance of the moon and the sun to the ground. In the treatise, Claudius considered the land radius of the earth. However, in his previous works, the author indicated the distance between the Sun and other celestial bodies without calculating the radius. Instead, the researcher used the following conclusion: the radius of the celestial body is equal to the distance from this planet to another object in the sky.

This can serve as proof of the inconsistency of the frequency of the creation of Ptolemy's works. Subsequently, the researcher took up the writing of another work called "Phases of Stark Stars." This work can be called the first attempt to compile meteorological weather forecasts. Ptolemy relied in his calculations not only on the physical phenomena of the Earth, but also on the position of other celestial bodies.

This treatise also presents a single system of knowledge about climatology, about the geographical zones of the Earth. To work on new astronomical theories, the researcher needed to use geometric information about the Earth. The next work of the scientist “Analem” was devoted to the calculation of circles, radii and arcs. The practical application of this knowledge lies in the existence of a sunny clock, which were created before Ptolemy.

In the work of Planisparium, the scientist studied such a phenomenon as a stereographic projection, which Ptolemy used in his calculations. This work was not devoted to scientific research, but by astrology. Ptolemy discussed the influence of heavenly bodies on the fate of man. The eight -volume work "Geography" is also very popular. This work is devoted to mathematical geography; This treatise laid the foundations of modern cartography.

In the first volume, the researcher proposed a report from the zero meridian, which in those days the Canary Islands were recognized. Scientists are still arguing about Ptolemy's contribution to modern science. The fact is that the other ancient astronomer Hipparchus described the position of celestial bodies long before Ptolemy. Falsification was the first to notice the famous poet Omar Hayyam.

After the appearance of Copernicus’s works, the astronomical assumptions of Ptolemy lost their relevance. Only Jordano Bruno for some time tried to work on the theory of geocentrism, a supporter of which was Ptolemy. However, soon this theory was recognized as false. The personal life of Ptolemy’s personal life may be familiar with Brage and modern scientists know almost nothing about other aspects of his biography.

It is only known that the researcher had students and assistants who helped the scientist in scientific activity.The researcher devoted his most famous work to a certain Sir, but the personality of the latter was never established. Modern historians do not even assume what relation to Sire had to Ptolemy. In the same treatise, Ptolemy was mentioned by a mathematician named Theon.

Claudius used colleagues data during his calculations. There is a hypothesis that Theon could be a teacher or acquaintance of Ptolemy. Some scientists believe that Claudius mentioned the famous philosopher, follower of Plato, Theon of Sminsky. The philosopher also studied heavenly bodies, even created a primitive map of objects in the sky. Claudius repeatedly communicated with the staff of the Alexandrian library, which stored almost all the scientific works of those times.

In some sources, the name of Claudius is associated with the ruling Egyptian dynasty of the Ptolemes. However, most likely, we have a simple coincidence.

The biography of Ptolemy is brief

Death the exact date of the death of the scientist remains unknown. Scientists believe that Ptolemy was supposedly died in the year of N. During this period, in some countries of Eurasia and Africa, a flash of plague arose, the victim of which could become Ptolemy.