Claudius Ptolem

It's a Fact 
Although Ptolemy was an influential astronomer, Later scientists like Brake and Laplace made charges of forgery against Him. The accusations of forgery made against Ptolemy came from Sir Isaac Newton as well. Newton wrote.... This is the story of a scientific crime.... I mean a crime committed by a scientist against fellow scientists and scholars, a betrayal of the ethics and integrity of his profession that has forever deprived mankind of fundamental information about an important area of astronomy and history. Newton claimed to prove every observation claimed by Ptolemy in the Almagest was fabricated, and wrote... "[Ptolemy] developed certain astronomical theories and discovered that they were not consistent with observation. Instead of abandoning the theories, he deliberately fabricated observations from the theories so that he could claim that the observations prove the validity of his theories. In every scientific or scholarly setting known, this practice is called fraud, and it is a crime against science and scholarship." 

Claudius Ptolem 
````````(83AD-161AD)
~~~~~~Astronomer of "Geocentrism" 

Born: After 83 AD, Roman Province of Egypt 
Died: 161 AD Roman Province of Egypt 
Occupation: Mathematician, geographer, Astronomer, Astrologer 


His name, Claudius Ptolemy, is a mixture of the Greek Egyptian 'Ptolemy' and the Roman 'Claudius'. This would indicate that he descended from a Greek family living in Egypt and that he was a citizen of Rome. 


Claudius Ptolemaeus better known as Ptolemy, was a Greek astronomer who flourished in Alexandria in the 1st century AD. He was also a mathematician of the first rank, geographer and astrologer as well as being an excellent astronomer. It is said that Ptolemy is the most discussed Greek mathematician in history. 


Ptolemy published several scientific treatises and the first was the 'Almagest' (meaning the greatest) It is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. The Almagest is the earliest of Ptolemy's works and gives in detail the mathematical theory of the motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Ptolemy made his most original contribution by presenting details for the motions of each of the planets. Ptolemy is claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations of previous astronomers going back several centuries. Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could predict the positions of planets and stars in the past and future. 


The Almagest also contains a star catalogue. It included 48 constellations and is believed to be the predecessor of the modern constellations which number 88. The Ptolemian model of the solar system was geocentric, with Earth at the centre of the Universe. Almagest became the authoritative astronomical text for nearly 14 centuries until his views were challenged by Nicholas Copernicus in the 16th century and culminating in the work of Galileo 


Ptolemy also did what many writers of deep scientific works have done, and still do, in writing a popular account of his results under the title "Planetary Hypothesis". This work, in two books, again follows the familiar route of reducing the mathematical skills needed by a reader. Ptolemy does this rather cleverly by replacing the abstract geometrical theories by mechanical ones. Ptolemy also wrote a work on astrology. It may seem strange to the modern reader that someone who wrote such excellent scientific books should write on astrology. However, Ptolemy sees it rather differently for he claims that the Almagest allows one to find the positions of the heavenly bodies, while his astrology book he sees as a companion work describing the effects of the heavenly bodies on people's lives. Ptolemy's published works on astrology enjoyed success in the Islamic world and the Medieval West. 


Geography washis other interest and wrote the book 'Geographia' which is a collection of geographical data during his time. Ptolemy's major work Geography, in eight books, attempts to map the known world giving coordinates of the major places in terms of latitude and longitude. It is not surprising that the maps given by Ptolemy were quite inaccurate in many places for he could not be expected to do more than use the available data and this was of very poor quality for anything outside the Roman Empire, and even parts of the Roman Empire are severely distorted. Ptolemy also included Sri Lanka in the maps and called Sri Lanka, Taprobane.


Ptolemy also wrote on mathematics governing music in his music theory. He described how musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations and vice versa. 

Posted in: Greatest Astronomers