Branches of Mathematics

Pure mathematics

• Algebra
• Calculus
• Geometry
• Topology
• Trignometry
• Combinatorics
• Logic
• Number theory

Applied mathematics

• Dynamical systems and differential equations
• Mathematical physics
• Computing
• Information theory and signal processing
• Probability and statistics
• Game theory
• Operations research

Related Topics

• Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Linear Equations
• Applied Physics
• Nano Technology
• Engineering Sciences
• Mathematical Medicine
• Fluid dynamics
• Computational Mathematics
• Gamma Ray Optics
• Onfrared Optics
• Relative Velocity
• Iciam
• Intelligent Imaging Neuroscience
• Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience Research
• Quantum Cosmology
• Brain Research

• Abu Nasr Mansur
• Abu Said Gorgani
• Abu-Mahmud Khojandi
• Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī
• Abū al‐ʿUqūl
• Abū Ja'far al-Khāzin
• Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī
• Abū Sahl al-Qūhī
• Acoreus
• Aglaonike
• Agrippa (astronomer)
• Ahmad ibn Yusuf
• Ahmad Nahavandi
• Al-Azhar University
• Al-Battani
• Al-Birjandi
• Al-Biruni
• Al-Fadl ibn Naubakht
• Al-Kharaqī
• Al-Khazini
• Al-Khwarizmi
• Al-Kindi
• Al-Mahani
• Al-Nayrizi
• Al-Qummi
• Al-Saghani
• Al-Sufi
• Alchabitius
• Alfonsine tables
• Alhazen
• Alhidade
• Ali Qushji
• Alidade
• Almagest
• Almanac
• Almucantar
• Altitude
• Analog computer
• Anaximander
• Anvari
• Aperture
• Apollonius of Perga
• Apsis
• Aratus
• Aristarchus of Samos
• Aristillus
• Armillary sphere
• Astrarium
• Astrolabe
• Astrologers
• Astronomical catalog
• Astronomical clock
• Astronomy
• Astrophysics
• Attalus of Rhodes
• Autolycus of Pitane
• Avicenna
• Axial tilt
• Azimuth
• Babylonian astronomy
• Banū Mūsā
• Batch production
• Bion of Abdera
• Book of Fixed Stars
• Book of Optics
• By-nc-nd
• Byzantine Empire
• Byzantine science
• Calendar
• Callippic cycle
• Callippus
• Celestial globe
• Celestial mechanics
• Celestial sphere
• Celestial spheres
• Chinese astronomy
• Circle
• Circle of latitude
• Circular orbit
• Classical antiquity
• Cleomedes
• Cleostratus
• Clime
• Compass
• Compass rose
• Conon of Samos
• Cosmolabe
• Counter-Earth
• Declination
• Degree (angle)
• Dioptra
• Division of labor
• Earth's rotation
• Ecliptic
• Edmund F. Robertson
• Egyptian astronomy
• Elliptic orbit
• Equant
• Equatorial ring
• Equatorium
• Eratosthenes
• Euctemon
• Eudoxus of Cnidus
• Floruit
• Folk etymology
• Francis Maddison
• Gadget
• Galaxy
• Gear
• Geminus
• Geocentric model
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Georg Hartmann
• Globe
• Gnomon
• Graph paper
• Gravitation
• Greek astronomy
• Greek language
• Hamza al-Isfahani
• Heliocentrism
• Heraclides Ponticus
• Hicetas
• Hipparchic cycle
• Hipparchus
• Hippocrates of Chios
• Horizon
• Horoscope
• Hour
• House of Knowledge
• House of Wisdom
• Hypatia
• Hypsicles
• Ibn Abi al-Shukr
• Ibn al-Kammad
• Ibn al-Saffar
• Ibn al-Shatir
• Ibn Yunus
• Ibrahim ibn Sinan
• Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī
• Inclinometer
• India
• Indian astronomy
• Inertia
• Iranshahri
• Isfahan
• Islamic astrology
• Islamic astronomy
• Islamic calendar
• Islamic cosmology
• Islamic Golden Age
• Jabir ibn Aflah
• Jainism
• Jamshīd al-Kāshī
• Jean Fusoris
• Johannes Stöffler
• John David North
• John Philoponus
• Kamāl al-Dīn Fārisī
• Kushyar ibn Labban
• Latitude
• Madrasah
• Magnifying glass
• Mahendra Suri
• Maragheh observatory
• Mariner's astrolabe
• Mashallah ibn Athari
• Mecca
• Meton of Athens
• Metonic cycle
• Middle Ages
• Moon
• Moonlight
• Muhammad al-Fazari
• Multiverse
• Mural instrument
• Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
• Navigators
• Nebula
• Observatory
• Octaeteris
• OED
• Oenopides
• Omar Khayyám
• On the Heavens
• Orbital eccentricity
• Orrery
• Parallax
• Paris
• Pelerin de Prusse
• Peter of Maricourt
• Philip of Opus
• Philippe Danfrie
• Philolaus
• Piri Reis
• Planetarium
• Planets
• Planisphere
• Plato Tiburtinus
• Pointer (rod)
• Pope Sylvester II
• Posidonius
• Prague Orloj
• Prayer
• Precession
• Ptolemy
• Pytheas
• Qibla
• Qotb al-Din Shirazi
• Quadrivium
• Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī
• Renaissance
• Research institute
• Richard Nelson Frye
• Ruler
• Sahl ibn Bishr
• Said Al-Andalusi
• Salah
• Salat
• Salat times
• Seleucus of Seleucia
• Severus Sebokht
• Shadow square
• Sharafeddin Tusi
• Sibt al-Mardini
• Sijzi
• Silvio Bedini
• Sky
• Solstice
• Specific gravity
• Spherical astrolabe
• Spherical Earth
• Star
• Star catalogue
• Star chart
• Strabo
• Sublunary sphere
• Sullam al-sama'
• Sun
• Sundial
• Sunlight
• Supernova
• Surveying
• Tabriz
• Tabula Rogeriana
• TEDGlobal
• Telescope
• Temporal finitism
• Tetrabiblos
• Thales
• The Book of Healing
• Theon of Alexandria
• Theon of Smyrna
• Thābit ibn Qurra
• Time
• Timocharis
• Toledan Tables
• Torquetum
• Triangulation
• Trigonometry table
• Tusi-couple
• Tympan
• Ulugh Beg
• Ulysse Nardin
• Umayyad Mosque
• Universe
• Wiktionary Starlight
• Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq
• Zakariya al-Qazwini
• Zij
• Zij-i Ilkhani
• Zij-i-Sultani
• Zodiac
• ʿAbd al‐Wājid
• 
  

• 
  India
  India (ⁱ/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
  Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
  
  wn.com/India
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  Isfahan
  Isfahan (Persian: اصفهان‎ Esfahān), historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609 and is Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad. The Isfahan metropolitan area had a population of 3,430,353 in the 2006 Census, the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after Tehran.
  The cities of Zarrinshahr, Fooladshahr and Najafabad, Se-deh , Shahin-shahr, Mobarakeh, Falavarjan and chiarmahin all constitute the metropolitan city of Isfahan.
  Isfahan is located on the main north-south and east-west routes crossing Iran, and was once one of the largest cities in the world. It flourished from 1050 to 1722, particularly in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it became the capital of Persia for the second time in its history. Even today, the city retains much of its past glory. It is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets. This led to the Persian proverb "'Esfahān nesf-e jahān ast" (Isfahan is half of the world).
  
  wn.com/Isfahan
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  Maragheh observatory
  Maragheh observatory (Persian: رصدخانهٔ مراغه‎) is an institutionalized astronomical observatory which was established in 1259 CE under the patronage of the Ilkhanid Hulagu and the directorship of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, an Iranian scientist and astronomer. Located in the heights west of Maragheh, East Azarbaijan Province, Iran, it was once considered one of the most prestigious observatories in the world.^{[citation needed]}
  It was financed by waqf revenues, which allowed it to continue to operate even after the death of its founder and was active for more than 50 years. The observatory served as a model for later observatories including the 15th-century Ulugh Beg Observatory at Samarkand, the 16th-century Taqi al-Din observatory at Istanbul, and the 18th-century Jai Singh observatory at Jaipur.
  Considerable parts of the groundwork are preserved in the ruins. In a 340 to 135 m² citadel-like area stood a four-story circular stone building of 28 m diameter. The mural quadrant to observe the positions of the stars and planets was aligned with the meridian. This meridian served as Prime meridian for the tables in the Zij-i Ilkhani, as we nowadays apply the meridian which passes the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
  
  wn.com/Maragheh_observatory
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  Mecca
  Mecca ( /ˈmɛkə/; Arabic: مكة‎, Makkah, pronounced [ˈmækːɐ]) is a city in the Hejaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during Hajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhu al-Hijjah.
  As the birthplace of Muhammad and a site of the composition of the Quran, Mecca is regarded as the holiest city in the religion of Islam and a pilgrimage to it known as the Hajj is obligatory upon all able Muslims. The Hijaz was long ruled by Muhammad's descendants, the sharifs, either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger empires. It was absorbed into Saudi Arabia in 1925. In its modern period, Mecca has seen tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure. Because of this Mecca has lost many thousand years old buildings and archaeological sites. Today, more than 15 million Muslims visit Mecca annually, including several million during the few days of the Hajj. As a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Muslim world, although non-Muslims remain prohibited from entering the city.
  
  wn.com/Mecca
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  Paris
  Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
  Paris (ⁱ/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
  Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest and most liveable cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.
  
  wn.com/Paris
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  Tabriz
  Tabriz (Persian/Azerbaijani:تبریز) ( pronunciation (help·info)) is the fifth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quru River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former capitals, and residence of the crown prince under the Qajar dynasty. The city has proven extremely influential in the country’s recent history. Tabriz is located in a valley to the north of the long ridge of the volcanic cone of Sahand, south of the Eynali mountain. The valley opens out into a plain that slopes gently down to the northern end of Lake Urmia, 60 km to the west. With cold winters and temperate summers the city is considered a summer resort.
  The estimated population of the city is around 1,400,000 based on results of the Iranian census bureau. Tabriz is the fourth most populous city in Iran after Tehran, Mashhad, and Esfahan, and is also a major Iranian heavy industrial and manufacturing center. Some of these industries include automobile, machine tools, oil and petrochemical and cement production.
  
  wn.com/Tabriz
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  Umayyad Mosque
  The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus (Arabic: جامع بني أمية الكبير‎, transliteration Ğām' Banī 'Umayya al-Kabīr) or formerly the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist (Greek: Βασιλική του Αγίου Ιωάννη του Βαπτιστή, transliteration Vasilikí tou Agíou Ioánni tou Vaptistí), located in the old city of Damascus, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. It is considered the fourth-holiest place in Islam.
  After the Arab conquest of Damascus in 634, the mosque was built on the site of a Christian basilica dedicated to John the Baptist (Yahya). The mosque holds a shrine which today may still contain the head of John the Baptist, honored as a prophet by both Christians and Muslims alike, and the place where Isa (Jesus) will return at the End of Days. The tomb of Saladin stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the mosque.
  Damascus was the capital of the Aramaean state Aram-Damascus during the Iron Age. The Arameans of western Syria followed the cult of Hadad-Ramman, the god of thunderstorms and rain, and erected a temple dedicated to him at the site of the present-day Umayyad Mosque. It is not known exactly how the temple looked, but it is believed to have followed the traditional Semitic-Canaanite architectural form, resembling the Temple of Jerusalem. The site likely consisted of a walled courtyard, a small chamber for worship, and a tower-like structure typically symbolizing the "high place" of storm gods, in this case Hadad. One stone remains from the Aramaean temple, dated to the rule of King Hazael, has survived and is currently on display in the National Museum of Damascus.
  
  wn.com/Umayyad_Mosque

• Abu Nasr Mansur
  Abu Nasr Mansur ibn Ali ibn Iraq (Persian: ابو نصر منصور بن علی بن عراق‎; c. 960 – 1036) was a Persian Muslim mathematician. He is well known for his work with the spherical sine law.
  Abu Nasr Mansur was born in Gilan, Persia, to the ruling family of Khwarezm, the "Banu Iraq". He was thus a prince within the political sphere. He was a student of Abu'l-Wafa and a teacher of and also an important colleague of the mathematician, Al-Biruni. Together, they were responsible for great discoveries in mathematics and dedicated many works to one another.
  Most of Abu Nasr's work focused on math, but some of his writings were on astronomy. In mathematics, he had many important writings on trigonometry, which were developed from the writings of Ptolemy. He also preserved the writings of Menelaus of Alexandria and reworked many of the Greeks theorems.
  He died in the Ghaznavid Empire (modern-day Afghanistan) near the city of Ghazna.
  
  wn.com/Abu_Nasr_Mansur
• Abu Said Gorgani
  Abu Sa'id Zarir Gorgani (Persian: ابوسعيد ضرير گرگانی‎), also spelled Gorgani, was a 9th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer from Gorgan, Iran. He wrote a treatise on geometrical problems and another on the drawing of the meridian.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Abu_Said_Gorgani
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  Aglaonike
  Aglaonike (Gr. Ἀγλαονίκη, fl. 2nd century BC), also known as Aganice of Thessaly is cited as the first female astronomer in ancient Greece. She is mentioned in the writings of Plutarch and Apollonius of Rhodes as the daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly. She was regarded as a sorceress for her ability to make the moon disappear from the sky, which has been taken to mean she could predict the time and general area where a lunar eclipse would occur.
  A number of female astrologers, apparently regarded as sorcerers, were associated with Aglaonike. They were known as the "witches of Thessaly" and were active from the 1st to 3rd centuries BCE.
  One of the craters of the planet Venus is named after Aglaonike.
  Aglaonike is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, being represented as one of the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.
  A Greek proverb makes reference to Aglaonike's alleged boasting: "Yes, as the moon obeys Aglaonike".
   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1867). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 
  
  wn.com/Aglaonike
• Ahmad ibn Yusuf
  Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Tammam al-Siddiq Al-Baghdadi (835–912), known in the West by his Latinized name Hametus, was an Arab mathematician, like his father Yusuf ibn Ibrahim (Arabic: يوسف بن ابراهيم الصدَيق البغدادي ‎).
  Ahmad ibn Yusuf was born in Baghdad and moved with his father to Damascus in 839. He later moved to Cairo, but the exact date is unknown: since he was also known as al-Misri, which means the Egyptian, this probably happened at an early age. Eventually, he also died in Cairo. He probably grew up in a strongly intellectual environment: his father worked on Mathematics, Astronomy and Medicine, produced astronomical tables and was a member of a group of scholars. He achieved an important role in Egypt, which was caused by Egypt's relative independence from the Abbasid Caliph.
  For some of the work attributed to Ahmad, it is not exactly clear whether he wrote his, whether his father wrote it or whether they wrote it together. It is clear, however, that he worked on a book on ratio and proportion. This was translated to Latin by Gherard of Cremona and was a commentary of Euclid's Elements. This book influenced early European mathematicians such as Fibonacci. Further, in On similar arcs, he commented on Ptolemy's Karpos (or Centiloquium); many scholars believe that ibn Yusuf was in fact the true author of that work. He also wrote a book on the astrolabe. He invented methods to solve tax problems that were later presented in Fibonacci's Liber Abaci. He was also quoted by mathematicians such as Thomas Bradwardine, Jordanus de Nemore and Luca Pacioli.
  
  wn.com/Ahmad_ibn_Yusuf
• Ahmad Nahavandi
  Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Nahavandi was a Persian astronomer of the 8th and 9th centuries. His name indicates that he was from Nahavand, a city in Iran.
  He lived and worked at the Academy of Gundishapur, in Khuzestan, Iran, at the time of Yahya ibn Khalid ibn Barmak, who died in 803AD, where he is reported to have been making astronomical observations around the year 800AD. He and Mashallah ibn Athari were among the earliest Islamic era astronomers who flourished during the reign of al-Mansur, the second Abbasid Caliph.
  He also compiled tables called the comprehensive (Mushtamil).
  
  
  
  wn.com/Ahmad_Nahavandi
• Alchabitius
  Abu al-Saqr al-Qabisi Abd al-Aziz ibn Uthman, Abu al-Saqr al-Qabisi, Al-Qabisi, Alchabitius (or Alcabitius <Medieval Latin<Arabic: Abû al-Saqr al-Qabîsî 'Abd al-'Azîz ibn Uthmân, أبو الصقر القبيصي عبد العزيز بن عثمان), also known as Alchabiz, Abdelazys, Abdilaziz (<Arabic: 'Abd al-Azîz, عبدالعزيز), was a 10th century Arabian astrologer (died 967).
  He is primarily known for his treatise on judicial astrology, Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars, dedicated to the Sultan Sayf al-Dawla (reigned c. 916-967) of the Hamdanid dynasty, a work which, in Latin translation, was highly prized in medieval and renaissance Europe.
  A 13th century Latin translation in manuscript by John of Seville was printed in 1473 under the title Alchabitii Abdilazi liber introductorius ad magisterium judiciorum astrorum (the work is also known as the Liber isagogicus de planetarum coniunctionibus). Eleven early printed editions from 1485 to 1521 appeared with the 14th-century commentary by John Danko of Saxony.
  
  wn.com/Alchabitius
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  Alhazen
  Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Arabic: أبو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم, Latinized: Alhacen or (deprecated)Alhazen) (965 in Basra – c. 1040 in Cairo) was a Muslimscientist and polymath described in various sources as either Arab or Persian. Alhazen made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to physics, astronomy, mathematics, ophthalmology, philosophy, visual perception, and to the scientific method. He also wrote insightful commentaries on works by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Greek mathematician Euclid.
  He is frequently referred to as Ibn al-Haytham, and sometimes as al-Basri (Arabic: البصري), after his birthplace in the city of Basra. He was also nicknamed Ptolemaeus Secundus ("Ptolemy the Second") or simply "The Physicist" in medieval Europe.
  Born circa 965, in Basra, present-day Iraq, he lived mainly in Cairo, Egypt, dying there at age 74. Over-confident about practical application of his mathematical knowledge, he assumed that he could regulate the floods of the Nile. After being ordered by Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the sixth ruler of the Fatimid caliphate, to carry out this operation, he quickly perceived the impossibility of what he was attempting to do, and retired from engineering. Fearing for his life, he feigned madness and was placed under house arrest, during and after which he devoted himself to his scientific work until his death.
  
  wn.com/Alhazen
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  Ali Qushji
  Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed (1403 – 16 December 1474), known as Ali Qushji (Ottoman Turkish/Persian language: علی قوشچی, kuşçu - falconer in Turkish;Latin: Ali Kushgii), was a Turkic or Persianastronomer, mathematician and physicist originally from Samarkand, who settled in the Ottoman Empire some time before 1472. As a disciple of Ulugh Beg, he is best known for the development of astronomical physics independent from natural philosophy, and for providing empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation in his treatise, Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy. In addition to his contributions to Ulugh Beg's famous work Zij-i-Sultani and to the founding of Sahn-ı Seman University^{[citation needed]}, one of the first madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire, Ali Qushji was also the author of several scientific works and textbooks on astronomy.
  Ali Qushji was born in 1403 in the city of Samarkand, in present-day Uzbekistan. His full name at birth was Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed al-Qushji. The last name Qushji derived from the Turkish term kuşçu - the falconer - due to the fact that Ali's father Muhammad was the royal falconer of Ulugh Beg.
  
  wn.com/Ali_Qushji
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  Anaximander
  Anaximander ( /əˌnæksɨˈmændər/; Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος, Anaximandros; c. 610 – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia; Milet in modern Turkey. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales. He succeeded Thales and became the second master of that school where he counted Anaximenes and arguably, Pythagoras amongst his pupils.
  Little of his life and work is known today. According to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies, although only one fragment of his work remains. Fragmentary testimonies found in documents after his death provide a portrait of the man.
  Anaximander was one of the earliest Greek thinkers at the start of the Axial Age, the period from approximately 700 BC to 200 BC, during which similarly revolutionary thinking appeared in China, India, Iran, the Near East, and Ancient Greece. He was an early proponent of science and tried to observe and explain different aspects of the universe, with a particular interest in its origins, claiming that nature is ruled by laws, just like human societies, and anything that disturbs the balance of nature does not last long. Like many thinkers of his time, Anaximander's contributions to philosophy relate to many disciplines. In astronomy, he tried to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth. In physics, his postulation that the indefinite (or apeiron) was the source of all things led Greek philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction. His knowledge of geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon in Greece. He created a map of the world that contributed greatly to the advancement of geography. He was also involved in the politics of Miletus and was sent as a leader to one of its colonies.
  
  wn.com/Anaximander
• Anvari
  Anvari (1126–1189), full name Awhad ad-Din 'Ali ibn Mohammad Khavarani or Awhad ad-Din 'Ali ibn Mahmud (Persian: اوحد الدین علی ابن محد انوری‎) was a Persian poet.
  He was born in Abivard of (now in Turkmenistan) and died in Khurasanian Balkh, now in Afghanistan, and studied science and literature at the collegiate institute in Toon (now Ferdows, Iran), becoming a famous astronomer as well as a poet.
  Anvari's poems were collected in a Deewan, and contains panegyrics, eulogies, satire, and others. His elegy "Tears of Khorasan", translated into English in 1789, is considered to be one of the most beautiful poems in Persian literature. The Cambridge History of Iran calls Anvari "one of the greatest figures in Persian literature". Despite their beauty, his poems often required much help with interpretation, as they were often complex and difficult to understand.
  Anvari's panegyric in honour of the Seljuk sultan Sultan Sanjar (1117–1157), ruler of Khorasan, won him royal favour, and allowed him to go on to enjoy the patronage of two of Sanjar's successors. However, when his prophecy of disasters in October 1185 failed, he fell out of favour with the kingship, and was forced into a life of scholarly service, eventually taking his own life in 1189.
  
  wn.com/Anvari
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  Aratus
  Aratus (Ancient Greek: Ἄρατος ὁ Σολεύς; ca. 315 BC/310 BC – 240 BC) was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem Phaenomena (Φαινόμενα "Appearances"), the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus. It describes the constellations and other celestial phenomena. The second half is called the Diosemeia (Διοσημεῖα "Forecasts"), and is chiefly about weather lore. Although Aratus was somewhat ignorant of Greek astronomy, his poem was very popular in the Greek and Roman world, as is proved by the large number of commentaries and Latin translations, some of which survive.
  There are several accounts of his life by anonymous Greek writers, and the Suda and Eudocia also mention him. From these it appears that he was a native of Soli in Cilicia, (although one authority says Tarsus). He is known to have studied with Menecrates in Ephesus and Philitas in Cos. As a disciple of the Peripatetic philosopher Praxiphanes, in Athens, he met the Stoic philosopher Zeno, as well as Callimachus of Cyrene and Menedemus, the founder of the Eretrian School.
  
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  Aristarchus of Samos
  Aristarchus (310 BC – ca. 230 BC), was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it (see Solar system). He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
  His name is Ἀρίσταρχος in Greek letters, which transliterates to Aristarchos. He was born on the island of Samos, in the eastern Aegean Sea.
  Though the original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli) describes another work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model as an alternative hypothesis. Archimedes wrote:
  Aristarchus thus believed the stars to be very far away, and that in consequence there was no observable parallax, that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other as the Earth moves around the Sun. The stars are much farther away than was generally assumed in ancient times; and since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his speculation although accurate was unprovable at the time.
  
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• Aristillus
  Aristillus (fl. ca. 260 BC) was a Greek astronomer, presumably of the school of Timocharis (c.300 BC). He was among the earliest meridian-astronomy observers. Six of his stellar declinations are preserved at Almajest 7.3. All are exactly correct within his over-cautious rounding to 1/4 degree. See discussion (and lessons) at DIO 7.1 ‡1 p.13 (2007).
  Aristyllos was long mis-dated to c.300 BC (which made his data look among the poorest of the ancients); but when his correct date was found by least-squares (Isis 73:259-265 [1982] p.263), it was realized that his star declinations' accuracy was unexcelled in antiquity. His data suggest that he worked in Alexandria: see DIO 4.1 ‡3 Table 3 p.45 (2004).
  A lunar crater, Aristillus, aptly near the Moon's meridian and at a lunar latitude roughly equal to the terrestrial latitude of Alexandria, is named after him.
  
  
  
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• Attalus of Rhodes
  Attalus of Rhodes (Greek: Άτταλος ο Ρόδιος) was an ancient Greek grammarian, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Rhodes in the 2nd century BC, and was a contemporary of Hipparchus. He wrote a commentary on the Phaenomena of Aratus. Although this work is lost, Hipparchus cites him in his Commentary on the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus. Attalus sought to defend both Aratus and Eudoxus against criticisms from contemporary astronomers and mathematicians.
  
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• Autolycus of Pitane
  Autolycus of Pitane (Greek: Αυτόλυκος ο Πιτταναίος or Πιττανεύς) (c. 360 BC – c. 290 BC) was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. The lunar crater Autolycus was named in his honour.
  Autolycus was born in Pitane, a town of Aeolis within Western Anatolia. Of his personal life nothing is known, although he was a contemporary of Aristotle and his works seem to have been completed in Athens within the years 335 BC and 300 BC. Euclid references some of Autolycus' work, and Autolycus is known to have taught Arcesilaus. Autolycus' surviving works include a book on spheres entitled On the Moving Sphere and another On Risings and Settings of celestial bodies. Autolycus' works were translated by Maurolycus in the sixteenth century.
  
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  Avicenna
  Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā (Persian پورسينا Pur Sina [ˈpuːr ˈsiːnɑː] "son of Sina"; c. 980, Afshana near Bukhara– 1037, Hamadan, Iran), commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persianpolymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine.
  His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Leuven as late as 1650. Ibn Sīnā's Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen (and Hippocrates).
  His corpus also includes writing on philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, as well as poetry. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.
  
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  Banū Mūsā
  The Banū Mūsā brothers ("Sons of Moses"), namely Abū Jaʿfar, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (before 803 – February, 873), Abū al‐Qāsim, Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th century) and Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th century), were three 9th-century Persian scholars of Baghdad who are known for their Book of Ingenious Devices on automata (automatic machines) and mechanical devices. Another important work of theirs is the Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures, a foundational work on geometry that was frequently quoted by both Islamic and European mathematicians.
  The Banu Musa worked in astronomical observatories established in Baghdad by the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun as well as doing research in the House of Wisdom. They also participated in an 9th-century expedition to make geodesic measurements to determine the length of a degree.
  The Banu Musa were the three sons of Mūsā ibn Shākir, who earlier in life had been a highwayman and astronomer in Khorasan of unknown pedigree. After befriending al-Maʾmūn, who was then a governor of Khorasan and staying in Marw, Musa was employed as an astrologer and astronomer. After his death, his young sons were looked after by the court of al-Maʾmūn. Al-Maʾmūn recognized the abilities of the three brothers and enrolled them in the famous House of Wisdom, a library and a translation center in Baghdad.
  
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• Callippus
  Callippus or Calippus (Greek: Κάλλιπος; ca. 370 BC – ca. 300 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician.
  Callippus was born at Cyzicus, and studied under Eudoxus of Cnidus at the Academy of Plato. He also worked with Aristotle at the Lyceum, which means that he was active in Athens prior to Aristotle's death in 322. He observed the movements of the planets and attempted to use Eudoxus' scheme of connected spheres to account for their movements. However he found that 27 spheres was insufficient to account for the planetary movements, and so he added seven more for a total of 34. According to the description in Aristotle's Metaphysics (XII.8), he added two spheres for the Sun, two for the Moon, and one each for Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
  Callippus made careful measurements of the lengths of the seasons, finding them (starting with the spring equinox) to be 94 days, 92 days, 89 days, and 90 days. This variation in the seasons implies a variation in the speed of the Sun, called the solar anomaly. He also followed up on the work done by Meton of Athens to measure the length of the year and construct an accurate lunisolar calendar. The Metonic cycle has 19 tropical years and 235 synodic months in 6940 days. The Callippic cycle synchronizes days per orbit and rotations per orbit within the Metonic cycle, noting the difference of one after 4 Metonic cycles, a duration of 76 years. Distinguishing rotations and days infers knowledge of the precession cycle.
  
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• Cleostratus
  Cleostratus (ca. 520 BC; possibly 548 BC to 432 BC) was an astronomer of ancient Greece. He was a native of Tenedos, and the Chaldean astronomer Naburimannu may have been a contemporary of him. He is believed by some scholars to have introduced the zodiac (beginning with Aries and Sagittarius) and the solar calendar to Greece from Babylonia. Censorinus (De Die Natali, c. 18) considers Cleostratus to have been the real inventor of the octaeteris, or cycle of eight years. The octaeteris was used before the Metonic cycle of 19 years, and was popularly attributed to Eudoxus. Theophrastus (de Sign. Pluv., p. 239, ed. Basil. 1541) mentions him as a meteorological observer along with Matricetas of Methymna and Phaeinus of Athens. Gaius Julius Hyginus (Poetica Astronomica, ii. 13) says that Cleostratus first pointed out the two stars in Auriga called Haedi. The crater Cleostratus on the Moon is named after him.
  
  
  
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• Conon of Samos
  Conon of Samos (Greek: Κόνων) (ca. 280 BC – ca. 220 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician. He is primarily remembered for naming the constellation Coma Berenices.
  Conon was born on Samos, Ionia, and possibly died in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt, where he was court astronomer to Ptolemy III Euergetes. He named the constellation Coma Berenices ("Berenice's Hair") after Ptolemy's wife Berenice II. She sacrificed her hair in exchange for her husband's safe return from the Third Syrian War, which began in 246 BCE. When the lock of hair disappeared, Conon explained that the goddess had shown her favor by placing it in the sky. Not all Greek astronomers accepted the designation. In Ptolemy's Almagest, Coma Berenices is not listed as a distinct constellation. However, Ptolemy does attribute several seasonal indications (parapegma) to Conon. Conon was a friend of the mathematician Archimedes whom he probably met in Alexandria.
  Pappus states that the spiral of Archimedes was discovered by Conon. Apollonius of Perga reported that Conon worked on conic sections, and his work became the basis for Apollonius' fourth book of the Conics. Apollonius further reports that Conon sent some of his work to Thrasydaeus, but that it was incorrect. Since this work has not survived it is impossible to assess the accuracy of Apollonius' comment.
  
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  Eratosthenes
  Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; English /ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; c. 276 BC – c. 195 BC) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, athlete, astronomer, and music theorist.
  He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. He invented a system of latitude and longitude.
  He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth by using a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period (with remarkable accuracy). He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (also with remarkable accuracy). He may also have accurately calculated the distance from the earth to the sun and invented the leap day. He also created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians within his cartographic depictions based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. In addition, Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavored to fix the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy.
  
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• Euctemon
  Euctemon (unknown-fl. 432 BC) was an Athenian astronomer. He was a contemporary of Meton and worked closely with this astronomer. Little is known of his work apart from his partnership with Meton and what is mentioned by Ptolemy. With Meton, he made a series of observations of the solstices (the points at which the sun is at greatest distance from the equator) in order to determine the length of the tropical year. Geminus and Ptolemy quote him as a source on the rising and setting of the stars. The lunar crater Euctemon is named after him.
  
  
  
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• Eudoxus of Cnidus
  Eudoxus of Cnidus (410 or 408 BC – 355 or 347 BC) was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy. Theodosius of Bithynia's Sphaerics may be based on a work of Eudoxus.
  His name Eudoxus means "honored" or "of good repute" (in Greek Εὔδοξος, from eu "good" and doxa "opinion, belief, fame"). It is analogous to the Latin name Benedictus.
  Eudoxus's father Aeschines of Cnidus loved to watch stars at night. Eudoxus first travelled to Tarentum to study with Archytas, from whom he learned mathematics. While in Italy, Eudoxus visited Sicily, where he studied medicine with Philiston.
  Around 387 BC, at the age of 23, he traveled with the physician Theomedon, who according to Diogenes Laërtius some believed was his lover, to Athens to study with the followers of Socrates. He eventually became the pupil of Plato, with whom he studied for several months, but due to a disagreement they had a falling out. Eudoxus was quite poor and could only afford an apartment at the Piraeus. To attend Plato's lectures, he walked the seven miles (11 km) each direction, each day. Due to his poverty, his friends raised funds sufficient to send him to Heliopolis, Egypt to pursue his study of astronomy and mathematics. He lived there for 16 months. From Egypt, he then traveled north to Cyzicus, located on the south shore of the Sea of Marmara, the Propontis. He traveled south to the court of Mausolus. During his travels he gathered many students of his own.
  
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  Francis Maddison
  Francis Romeril Maddison (1927–2006) was an English historian and Arabist. He was Curator of the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, England.
  Francis Maddison was born in Hounslow, London, England. He was educated at Hounslow College and Exeter College, Oxford, where he initially studied Modern Languages and then changed to Modern History.
  Maddison was President of the Oxford University Archaeological Society. He collaborated with R. J. C. Atkinson, who supervised him when he directed archaeological excavations at Cricklade and Dorchester in Oxfordshire. In 1949, Maddison was a member of the British School at Rome expedition to Leptis Magna, Tripolitana (now Libya, northern Africa). He then became an assistant archivist, first at Glamorgan County Record Office, followed by Warwickshire.
  He became assistant curator at the Museum of the History of Science at the encouragement of the head curator, C. H. Josten. Maddison's expertise in Arabic, initially learnt under the tutelage of his father, was reinforced through the museum's extensive collection of Arabic-Islamic astrolabes. He also has research interests in the history of horology, time measurement, and early sea navigation. He was promoted to Curator in 1964 on the retirement of C. H. Josten and held the post for thirty years until his own retirement in 1994.
  
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• Geminus
  Geminus of Rhodes (Greek: Γεμῖνος ὁ Ῥόδιος), was a Greek astronomer and mathematician, who flourished in the 1st century BC. An astronomy work of his, the Introduction to the Phenomena, still survives; it was intended as an introductory astronomy book for students. He also wrote a work on mathematics, of which only fragments quoted by later authors survive.
  Nothing is known about the life of Geminus. It is not even certain that he was born in Rhodes, but references to mountains on Rhodes in his Astronomical works suggests that he worked there. His dates are not known with any certainty either. A passage in his works referring to the Annus Vagus (Wandering Year) of the Egyptian calendar of 120 years before his own time, has been used to imply a date of c. 70 BC for the time of writing, which would be consistent with the idea that he may have been a pupil of Posidonius, but a date as late as 50 AD has also been suggested.
  The crater Geminus on the Moon is named after him.
  The only work of Geminus to survive is his Introduction to the Phenomena (Greek: Εἰσαγωγὴ εἰς τὰ Φαινόμενα), often just called the Isagoge. This introductory astronomy book, based on the works of earlier astronomers such as Hipparchus, was intended to teach astronomy for beginning students in the subject. In it, Geminus describes the zodiac and the motion of the Sun; the constellations; the celestial sphere; days and nights; the risings and settings of the zodiacal signs; luni-solar periods and their application to calendars; phases of the Moon; eclipses; star phases; terrestrial zones and geographical places; and the foolishness of making weather predictions by the stars.
  
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  Geoffrey Chaucer
  Geoffrey Chaucer ( /ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin.
  Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime around 1343, though the precise date and location of his birth remain unknown. His father and grandfather were both London vintners; several previous generations had been merchants in Ipswich. (His family name derives from the French chausseur, meaning "shoemaker".) In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure—bourgeois, if not elite. John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who, in 1349, inherited properties including 24 shops in London from her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described in a will dated April 3, 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as "moneyer"; he was said to be moneyer at the Tower of London. In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie' .
  
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  Georg Hartmann
  Georg Hartmann (sometimes spelled Hartman; 1489, Eggolsheim near Forchheim, Bavaria - April 9, 1564, Nuremberg) was a German engineer, instrument maker, author, printer, humanist, churchman, and astronomer.
  At the age of 17, he began studying theology and mathematics at the University of Cologne. After finishing his studies, he travelled through Italy and finally settled in Nuremberg in 1518. There he constructed astrolabes, globes, sundials, quadrants, and other instruments. Hartmann was possibly the first to discover the inclination of Earth's magnetic field.
  His two published works were Perspectiva Communis (Nuremberg, 1542), a reprint of John Peckham's 1292 book on optics and Directorium (Nuremberg, 1554), a book on astrology. He also left Collectanea mathematica praeprimis gnomonicam spectania, 151 f. MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Quarto, Saec. 16 (1527–1528), an unpublished work on sundials and astrolabes that was translated by John Lamprey and published under the title of Hartmann's Practika in 2002.
  
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• Heraclides Ponticus
  Heraclides Ponticus (Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός; c. 390 BC – c. 310 BC), also known as Herakleides and Heraklides of Pontus, was a Greek philosopher and astronomer who lived and died at Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey. He is best remembered for proposing that the earth rotates on its axis, from west to east, once every 24 hours. He is also frequently hailed as the originator of the heliocentric theory, although this is doubted.
  Heraclides' father was Euthyphron, a wealthy nobleman who sent him to study at the Platonic Academy in Athens under its founder Plato and under his successor Speusippus. According to Suda, Plato, on his departure for Sicily in 361/360 BC, left the Academy in the charge of Heraclides. Heraclides was nearly elected successor to Speusippus as head of the academy in 339/338 BC, but narrowly lost to Xenocrates.
  Like the Pythagoreans Hicetas and Ecphantus, Heraclides proposed that the apparent daily motion of the stars was created by the rotation of the Earth on its axis once a day. This view contradicted the accepted Aristotelian model of the universe, which said that the earth was fixed and that the stars and planets in their respective spheres might also be fixed. Simplicius says that Heraclides proposed that the irregular movements of the planets can be explained if the earth moves while the sun stays still.
  
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• Hicetas
  Hicetas (Ancient Greek: Ἱκέτας or Ἱκέτης; ca. 400 BC – ca. 335 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the Pythagorean School. He was born in Syracuse. Like his fellow Pythagorean Ecphantus and the Academic Heraclides Ponticus, he believed that the daily movement of permanent stars was caused by the rotation of the Earth around its axis.
  
  
  
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  Hipparchus
  Hipparchus/hɪˈpɑːrkəs/, or more correctly Hipparchos (Greek: Ἵππαρχος, Hipparkhos; c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC), was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician of the Hellenistic period. He is considered the founder of trigonometry.
  Hipparchus was born in Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey), and probably died on the island of Rhodes. He is known to have been a working astronomer at least from 162 to 127 BC. Hipparchus is considered the greatest ancient astronomical observer and, by some, the greatest overall astronomer of antiquity. He was the first whose quantitative and accurate models for the motion of the Sun and Moon survive. For this he certainly made use of the observations and perhaps the mathematical techniques accumulated over centuries by the Chaldeans from Babylonia. He developed trigonometry and constructed trigonometric tables, and he solved several problems of spherical trigonometry. With his solar and lunar theories and his trigonometry, he may have been the first to develop a reliable method to predict solar eclipses. His other reputed achievements include the discovery of Earth's precession, the compilation of the first comprehensive star catalog of the western world, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe, also of the armillary sphere, which he used during the creation of much of the star catalogue. It would be three centuries before Claudius Ptolemaeus' synthesis of astronomy would supersede the work of Hipparchus; it is heavily dependent on it in many areas.
  
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  Hippocrates of Chios
  Hippocrates of Chios was an ancient Greek mathematician, (geometer), and astronomer, who lived c. 470 – c. 410 BCE.
  He was born on the isle of Chios, where he originally was a merchant. After some misadventures (he was robbed by either pirates or fraudulent customs officials) he went to Athens, possibly for litigation. There he grew into a leading mathematician.
  On Chios Hippocrates may have been a pupil of the mathematician and astronomer Oenopides of Chios. In his mathematical work there probably was some Pythagorean influence too, perhaps via contacts between Chios and the neighbouring island of Samos, a center of Pythagorean thinking: Hippocrates has been described as a 'para-Pythagorean', a philosophical 'fellow traveler'. The Reductio ad absurdum argument (or proof by contradiction) has been traced to him.
  The major accomplishment of Hippocrates is that he was the first to write a systematically organized geometry textbook, called Stoicheia Elements, that is, basic theorems, or building blocks of mathematical theory). From then on, mathematicians from all over the ancient world could, at least in principle, build on a common framework of basic concepts, methods, and theorems, which stimulated the scientific progress of mathematics.
  
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  Hypatia
  Hypatia (ca. AD 350–370–March 415) ( /haɪˈpeɪʃə/ hy-PAY-shə; Ancient Greek: Ὑπατία; Hypatía) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher in Roman Egypt who was the first historically noted woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy.
  As a Neoplatonist philosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented by Eudoxus of Cnidus; she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature.
  Hypatia lived in Roman Egypt, and was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of witchcraft and godlessness and of causing religious turmoil. Kathleen Wilder proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, while Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian.
  
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• Hypsicles
  This article is about Hypsicles of Alexandria. For the historian, see Hyspicrates (historian).
  Hypsicles (Ancient Greek: Ὑψικλῆς; ca. 190 BCE – ca. 120 BCE) was an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer known for authoring On Ascensions (Ἀναφορικός) and the spurious Book XIV of Euclid's Elements.
  Although little is known about the life of Hypsicles, it is believed that he authored the astronomical work On Ascensions (Ἀναφορικός). In this work, Hypsicles proves a number of propositions on arithmetical progressions and uses the results to calculate approximate values for the times required for the signs of the zodiac to rise above the horizon. It is thought that this is the work from which the division of the circle into 360 parts may have been adopted since it divides the day into 360 parts, a division possibly suggested by Babylonian astronomy.
  Hypsicles is more famously known for possibly writing the apocryphal Book XIV of Euclid's Elements. The spurious Book XIV may have been composed on the basis of a treatise by Apollonius. The book continues Euclid's comparison of regular solids inscribed in spheres, with the chief result being that the ratio of the surfaces of the dodecahedron and icosahedron inscribed in the same sphere is the same as the ratio of their volumes, the ratio being Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \sqrt{\tfrac{10}{3(5-\sqrt{5})}} .
  
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• Ibn Yunus
  Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri (Arabic: ابن يونس) (c. 950-1009) was an important Egyptian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, whose works are noted for being ahead of their time, having been based on meticulous calculations and attention to detail.
  The crater Ibn Yunus on the Moon is named after him.
  Information regarding his early life and education is uncertain. He was born in Egypt between 950 and 952 and came from a respected family in Fustat. His father was a historian, biographer and scholar of hadith, who wrote two volumes about the history of Egypt—one about the Egyptians and one based on traveler commentary on Egypt. A prolific writer, Ibn Yunus' father has been described as "Egypt's most celebrated early historian and first known compiler of a biographical dictionary devoted exclusively to Egyptians". His great grandfather had been an associate of the noted legal scholar al-Shafi.
  Early in the life of Ibn Yunus, the Fatimid dynasty came to power and the new city of Cairo was founded. In Cairo, he worked as an astronomer for the Fatimid dynasty for twenty-six years, first for the Caliph al-Aziz and then for al-Hakim. Ibn Yunus dedicated his most famous astronomical work, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi, to the latter.
  
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• Ibrahim ibn Sinan
  Ibrahim ibn Sinan ibn Thābit ibn Qurra (908, Baghdad – 946, Baghdad) was a Syriac speaking Mandean from Harran in northern Mesopotamia/Assyria. He was mathematician and astronomer who studied geometry and in particular tangents to circles. He also made advances in the theory of integration^{[citation needed]}. He is often referenced as one of the most important mathematicians of his time.
  
  
  
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  Jabir ibn Aflah
  Abū Muḥammad Jābir ibn Aflaḥ (Arabic: أبو محمد جابر بن أفلح‎, Latin: Geber/Gebir; 1100–1150) was a Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Seville, who was active in 12th century Andalusia. His work Iṣlāḥ al-Majisṭi (Correction of the Almagest) influenced Islamic, Jewish and Christian astronomers.
  This work is a commentary and reworking of Ptolemy's Almagest and is the first criticism of it in the Islamic West. He particularly criticized the mathematical basis of the work. For example he replaced the use of Menelaus' theorem with ones based on spherical trigonometry, in what seems to be an attempt to increase the mathematical precision of the work. These theorems had been developed by a group of 10th century Islamic mathematicians who included Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī and then also by Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muadh Al-Jayyani who worked in Andalusia during the 11th century. Jābir doesn't credit any of these authors and doesn't refer to a single Islamic author in this work.
  One substantial change Jābir made to Ptolemy's account is that he placed the orbits of Venus and Mercury, the minor planets, outside that of the Sun, rather than between the Moon and the Sun as had been the case in the original work.
  
  wn.com/Jabir_ibn_Aflah
• Johannes Stöffler
  Johannes Stöffler (also Stöfler, Stoffler, Stoeffler) (10 December 1452 – 16 February 1531) was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, priest, maker of astronomical instruments and professor at the University of Tübingen.
  Johannes Stöffler was born on 10 December 1452, in Justingen near Blaubeuren on the Swabian Alb. Having received his basic education at the Blaubeuren monastery school, he registered at the newly founded University of Ingolstadt on 21 April 1472, where he was consequently promoted Baccalaureus in September 1473 and Magister in January 1476. After finishing his studies he obtained the parish of Justingen where he, besides his clerical obligations, concerned himself with astronomy, astrology and the making of astronomical instruments, clocks and celestial globes. He conducted a lively correspondence with leading humanists - for example, Johannes Reuchlin, for whom he made an Equatorium and wrote horoscopes.
  In 1499 he predicted that a deluge would cover the world on 20 February 1524. In 1507, at the instigation of Duke Ulrich I he received the newly established chair of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Tübingen, where he excelled in rich teaching and publication activities and finally was elected rector in 1522. Philipp Melanchthon and Sebastian Münster rank among his most famous students. When a plague epidemic forced the division and relocation of his university to the surrounding countryside in 1530, Stöffler went to Blaubeuren and died there on 16 February 1531 of the plague. He was buried in the choir of the collegiate church (Stiftskirche) in Tübingen.
  
  wn.com/Johannes_Stöffler
• John Philoponus
  John Philoponus^{[pronunciation?]}(Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Φιλόπονος; AD. 490–AD. 570), also known as John the Grammarian or John of Alexandria, was a Christian and Aristotelian commentator and the author of a considerable number of philosophical treatises and theological works. A rigorous, sometimes polemical writer and an original thinker who was controversial in his own time, John Philoponus broke from the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic tradition, questioning methodology and eventually leading to empiricism in the natural sciences.
  He was posthumously condemned as a heretic by the Orthodox Church in 680-81 because of what was perceived of as a tritheistic interpretation of the Trinity.
  His works were widely printed in Latin translations in Europe from the 15th century onwards. His critique of Aristotle in the Physics commentary was a major influence on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Galileo Galilei, who cited Philoponus substantially in his works.
  Possibly born into a Christian family, nothing is known of his early life. Philoponus studied at the school of Alexandria and began publishing from about 510. He was a pupil and sometime amanuensis to the Neoplatonic philosopher Ammonius Hermiae, who had studied at Athens under Proclus.
  
  wn.com/John_Philoponus
• 
  Mashallah ibn Athari
  Masha'allah ibn Atharī (c.740–815 AD) was an eighth-century Persian Jewishastrologer and astronomer from the city of Basra (now located in modern day Iraq) who became the leading astrologer of the late 8th century. The Arabic phrase ma sha`a allah indicates acceptance of what God has ordained in terms of good or ill fortune that may befall a believer. His real name was probably Manasseh or Jethro^{[citation needed]}, and Latin translators named him Messahala (with many variants, as Messahalla, Messala, Macellama, Macelarma, Messahalah). The crater Messala on the Moon is named after him. Science historian Donald Hill writes that Mashallah was originally from Khorasan.
  As a young man he participated in the founding of Baghdad in 762 by working with a group of astrologers led by Naubakht the Persian to pick an electional horoscope for the founding of the city. He wrote over twenty works on astrology, which became authoritative in later centuries at first in the Middle East, and then in the West when horoscopic astrology was transmitted back to Europe beginning in the 12th century.
  
  wn.com/Mashallah_ibn_Athari
• Meton of Athens
  Meton of Athens (Greek: Μέτων ὁ Ἀθηναῖος; gen.: Μέτωνος) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geometer, and engineer who lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. He is best known for calculations involving the eponymous 19-year Metonic cycle which he introduced in 432 BC into the lunisolar Attic calendar.
  The metonic calendar assumes that 19 solar years are equal to 235 lunar months, which is, in turn equal to 6940 days. This system was based on calculations made by Meton using his own observations of the summer solstice in 432 BC, and an observation made by Aristarchus 152 years later. Meton's observations were made in collaboration with Euctemon about whom nothing else is known.
  The Greek astronomer Callippus continued the work of Meton, proposing the Callippic cycle. The Callippic cycle is 76 years long -- approximately 4 times longer than the Metonic cycle, with one less solar day in the full cycle. Ironically, whereas the Metonic cycle overestimates the length of a solar year by 5 minutes, the Callippic cycle underestimates the length of a solar year by 11 minutes, and therefore produces results that are less accurate than those produced using the Metonic cycle.
  
  wn.com/Meton_of_Athens
• Oenopides
  Oenopides of Chios (Greek: Οἰνοπίδης) was an ancient Greek mathematician (geometer) and astronomer, who lived around 450 BCE. He was born shortly after 500 BCE on the island of Chios, but mostly worked in Athens.
  The main accomplishment of Oenopides as an astronomer was his determination of the angle between the plane of the celestial equator, and the zodiac (the yearly path of the sun in the sky). He found this angle to be 24°. In effect this amounted to measuring the inclination of the earth axis. Oenopides's result remained the standard value for two centuries, until Eratosthenes measured it with greater precision.
  Oenopides also determined the value of the Great Year, that is, the shortest interval of time that is equal to both an integer number of years and an integer number of months. As the relative positions of the sun and moon repeat themselves after each Great Year, this offers a means to predict solar and lunar eclipses. In actual practice this is only approximately true, because the ratio of the length of the year and that of the month does not exactly match any simple mathematical fraction, and because in addition the lunar orbit varies continuously.
  
  wn.com/Oenopides
• 
  Omar Khayyám
  Omar Khayyám (1048–1131; Persian: ‏عمر خیام‎) was a Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and Islamic theology.
  Born in Nishapur, at a young age he moved to Samarkand and obtained his education there, afterwards he moved to Bukhara and became established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. He is the author of one of the most important treatises on algebra written before modern times, the Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra, which includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He contributed to a calendar reform.
  His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, have not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings. Al-Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Avicenna in Nishapur where Khayyám was born and buried and where his mausoleum today remains a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every year.
  
  wn.com/Omar_Khayyám
• Philip of Opus
  Philip (or Philippus) of Opus, Greece, was a philosopher and a member of the Academy during Plato's lifetime. Philip was the editor of Plato's Laws. Philip of Opus is probably identical with the Philip of Medma (or Mende), the astronomer, who is also described as a disciple of Plato.
  According to Diogenes Laërtius, Philip of Opus was a disciple of Plato, who was responsible for transcribing Plato's Laws into twelve books, and writing the thirteenth book (the Epinomis) himself:
  Some say that Philip the Opuntian transcribed his [Plato's] work, Laws, which was written in wax [wooden tablets coated with wax]. They also say that the Epinomis [the thirteenth book of the Laws], is his.
  In the Suda, Philip is listed anonymously under the heading of philosophos ("philosopher"), his name being lost from the beginning of the entry:
  Philosopher who divided the Laws of Plato into 12 books; for he himself is said to have added the 13th. And he was a pupil of Socrates and of Plato himself, occupied with the study of the heavens. Living in the time of Philip of Macedon, he wrote the following: On the distance of the sun and moon; On gods; On time; On myths; On freedom; On anger; On reciprocation; On the Opuntian Lokrians; On pleasure; On passion; On friends and friendship; On writing; On Plato; On eclipse(s) of the moon; On the size of the sun and moon and earth; On lightning; On the planets; Arithmetic; On prolific numbers; Optics; Enoptics; Kykliaka; Means; etc.
  
  wn.com/Philip_of_Opus
• 
  Philippe Danfrie
  Philippe Danfrie the elder (about 1532 in Cornouaille in Brittany - 1606 in Paris), was a designer and maker of mathematical instruments in metal and paper, as well as a type-cutter, engraver, minter of coins and medals, publisher and author. Much is known about Danfrie's life and activities. He is probably best known as designer of the surveying instrument known as the graphometer.
  Danfrie went to Paris in the 1550s and set up as an engraver of letter punches. He produced a number of books in partnership with Richard Breton in 1558–60 and later with Pierre Haman and Jean Le Royer. He also made mathematical instruments, globes and astrolabes and dies for marking bookbindings. In 1571 he cut his first dies for jetons. As Engraver-General of the French coinage from 1582, he provided the puncheons from which the dies used in every mint in France were taken. He also produced a number of medals (e.g. London, BM) commemorating the events of the first fifteen years of Henry IV’s reign.
  Engraver and superintendent of the Paris Mint, Philippe Danfrie was also an engineer and inventor of scientific instruments. Active in the second half of the sixteenth century, he built globes, astrolabes, and clocks. He invented a typeface that he used in his published writings. These include: Declaration de l'usage du Graphometre..., printed in Paris in 1597 together with Traicte de l'usage du Trigometre, avec le quel on peut facilement mesurer sans subiection d'Arithmetique.
  
  wn.com/Philippe_Danfrie
• 
  Philolaus
  Philolaus (Greek: Φιλόλαος; c. 470–c. 385 BCE) was a Greek Pythagorean and Presocratic philosopher. He argued that all matter is composed of limiting and limitless things, and that the universe is determined by numbers. He is credited with originating the theory that the earth was not the center of the universe.
  Philolaus is variously reported as being born in either Croton,Tarentum, or Metapontum. All three places were located in southern Italy. He may have fled the second burning of the Pythagorean meeting-place around 454 BCE, after which he migrated to Greece. According to Plato's Phaedo, he was the instructor of Simmias and Cebes at Thebes, around the time the Phaedo takes place, in 399 BCE. This would make him a contemporary of Socrates, and agrees with the statement that Philolaus and Democritus were contemporaries. The various reports about his life are scattered among the writings of much later writers and are of dubious value in reconstructing his life. He apparently lived for some time at Heraclea^{[disambiguation needed ]}, where he was the pupil of Aresas, or (as Plutarch calls him) Arcesus.Diogenes Laërtius is the only authority for the claim that Plato, shortly after the death of Socrates, traveled to Italy where he met with Philolaus and Eurytus. The pupils of Philolaus and were said to have included Xenophilus, Phanto, Echecrates, Diocles and Polymnastus. As to his death, Diogenes Laërtius reports a dubious story that Philolaus was put to death at Croton on account of being suspected of wanting to be the tyrant; a story which Laërtius even took the trouble to put into verse.
  
  wn.com/Philolaus
• 
  Piri Reis
  Piri Reis (full name Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri - Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, Ahmet ibn-i el-Haç Mehmet El Karamani; Reis was a Turkish military rank akin to that of captain) was an Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470 and died in 1554 or 1555.
  He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on navigation, as well as very accurate charts (for its time) describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea. He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map (prepared in 1513) was discovered in 1929 at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still in existence anywhere (the oldest known map of America that is still in existence is the map drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500). Piri Reis' map is centered on the Sahara at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer.
  
  wn.com/Piri_Reis
• 
  Pope Sylvester II
  Pope Sylvester II (or Silvester II) (c. 946 – 12 May 1003), born Gerbert d'Aurillac, was a prolific scholar, teacher, and Pope. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He was the first French Pope, reigning from 999 until his death. Due to his efforts to root out simony and other corruption within the Church, and his connection with science and intellectualism, there were many rumors and legends spread of Sylvester II being a sorcerer in league with the devil.
  Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992), visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the Count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Spain and acquire there some knowledge of Arabic learning. In the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll.
  
  wn.com/Pope_Sylvester_II
• 
  Posidonius
  Posidonius (Greek: Ποσειδώνιος / Poseidonios, meaning "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (ca. 135 BCE - 51 BCE), was a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian and teacher native to Apamea, Syria. He was acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age. None of his vast body of work can be read in its entirety today, as it exists only in fragments.
  Posidonius, nicknamed "the Athlete", was born to a Greek family in Apamea, a Hellenistic city on the river Orontes in northern Syria, and probably died in Rome or Rhodes.
  Posidonius completed his higher education in Athens, where he was a student of the aged Panaetius, the head of the Stoic school.
  He settled around 95 BCE in Rhodes, a maritime state which had a reputation for scientific research, and became a citizen.
  In Rhodes, Posidonius actively took part in political life, and his high standing is apparent from the offices he held. He attained the highest public office as one of the Prytaneis (presidents, having a six months tenure) of Rhodes. He served as an ambassador to Rome in 87 - 86 BCE, during the Marian and Sullan era.
  
  wn.com/Posidonius
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  Ptolemy
  Claudius Ptolemy ( /ˈtɒləmi/; Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaudios Ptolemaios; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c. AD 90 – c. AD 168), was a Greek-Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid. This theory, proposed by Theodore Meliteniotes, could be correct, but it is late (ca. 1360) and unsupported. There is no reason to suppose that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria, where he died around AD 168.
  Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις, "The Great Treatise", originally Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις, "Mathematical Treatise"). The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise known sometimes in Greek as the Apotelesmatika (Ἀποτελεσματικά), more commonly in Greek as the Tetrabiblos (Τετράβιβλος "Four books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum (or four books) in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
  
  wn.com/Ptolemy
• 
  Pytheas
  Pytheas of Massalia or (using the Latin form) Massilia (Ancient Greek Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης) (4th century BC), was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia (modern day Marseilles). He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. Pytheas is the first person on record to describe the Midnight Sun,polar ice, Germanic and possibly Finnic tribes. He is the one who introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination. His account of the tides is the earliest to state they are caused by the moon.
  Pliny says that Timaeus (born about 350 BC) believed Pytheas' story of the discovery of amber. Strabo says that Dicaearchus (died about 285 BC) did not trust the stories of Pytheas. That is all the information that survives concerning the date of Pytheas' voyage. Presuming that Timaeus would not have written until after he was 20 years old at about 330 BC and Dicaearchus would have needed time to write his most mature work, after 300 BC, there is no reason not to accept Tozer's window of 330 BC – 300 BC for the voyage. Some would give Timaeus an extra 5 years, bringing the voyage down to 325 BC at earliest. There is no further evidence.
  
  wn.com/Pytheas
• Sahl ibn Bishr
  Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili, often known as Zahel or Zael (c. 786–845 ?) was a Jewish astrologer, astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the famous scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam.
  Sahl is believed to be the first who translated the Almagest of Ptolemy into Arabic.
  Sahl ibn Bishr wrote in the Greek astrological tradition. Sahl's first five books were preserved in the translation of John of Seville (Johannes Hispanus) (circa 1090 – circa 1150). See the English translation by Holden. The sixth book deals with three thematic topics regarding the influences on the world and its inhabitants was translated by Herman of Carinthia. The work contains divinations based on the movements of the planets and comets.
  There are some books by Sahl ibn Bishr in Arabic such as:
  
  
  
  wn.com/Sahl_ibn_Bishr
• Seleucus of Seleucia
  Seleucus (or Seleukos) of Seleucia (born c. 190 BC, fl. 150s BC) was a Hellenistic astronomer and philosopher. Coming from Seleucia on the Tigris, the capital of the Seleucid empire, or, alternatively, Seleukia on the Red Sea, he is best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and for his theory of the origin of tides.
  Teaching around 150 BC, he is known to have been a follower of the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus of Samos, which stated that the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus was the first to demonstrate the heliocentric system through reasoning, but it is not known what arguments he used. According to Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, Seleucus may have constructed his heliocentric theory by determining the constants of a geometric model and by developing methods to compute planetary positions using this model, as Nicolaus Copernicus later did in the 16th century. He may have used trigonometric methods that were available in his time, as he was a contemporary of Hipparchus.
  
  wn.com/Seleucus_of_Seleucia
• Severus Sebokht
  Severus Sebokht was a Syrian scholar and bishop who was born in Nisibis, Syria in 575 and died in 667.
  Although little is known about his early life, he was one of the leading figures in Syria in the 5th century. He taught at the Theological School of Nisibis. In 612, he left the post because of a doctrinal dispute with the Nestorians. He was a member of the Syrian Monophysite Church. He was a resident of the Monastery of Kennesrin, which was situated near the banks of the Euphrates.
  He was a teacher of the philosophy of Aristotle. In 638, he wrote a major treatise on Syllogisms. He translated into Syriac the commentaries on Aristotle of Paul the Persian.
  His major legacy is the transmission of the Indian number system to the Islamic world. He was perhaps the first Syrian to mention the Indian number system.
  He wrote a major treatise on the Astrolabe. His treatise contained 25 chapters and provided detailed explanations of the measurements of the movements of heavenly bodies.
  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/934459/Severus-Sebokht
  
  wn.com/Severus_Sebokht
• Sijzi
  Abu Sa'id Ahmed ibn Mohammed ibn Abd Jalil Sijzi (short for Sijistani) (Persian: ابوسعید سجزی‎) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician from Sistan, a region lying in the south-west of Afghanistan and south-east of Iran.
  Sijzi is thought to have been born around 945 CE, and lived through about 1020. His main scientific focus was astronomy. He had a deep knowledge of literature which he used to his advantage. He dedicated work to 'Adud al-Daula and the prince of Balkh. He also worked in Shiraz making astronomical observations from 969 to 970. He also did a lot of geometry work.
  Biruni wrote that Sijzi believed in a heliocentric system in which the Earth was moving and that he invented an astrolabe called the "Zuraqi" based on this idea:
  Sijzi was a mathematician who made a special study of the intersections of conic sections and circles. He replaced the old kinematical trisection of an angle by a purely geometric solution (intersection of a circle and an equilateral hyperbola.)
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Sijzi
• 
  Silvio Bedini
  Silvio Bedini (January 17, 1917—November 14, 2007) was an American historian, specialising in early scientific instruments. He was Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, where he served on the professional staff for twenty-five years, retiring in 1987.
  Bedini was born in the Colonial town of Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1917.
  In 1958 he accepted an invitation to write a brochure about the history of his hometown for its 250th anniversary, a project that just three months later resulted in a 411-page book titled Ridgefield in Review.
  In 1961 he accepted the offer of a position in Washington, D.C. as curator in the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the Smithsonian Institution in the new Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History), which was under construction. By 1965, Bedini became Assistant Director of the Museum of History and Technology, and in 1972 was appointed Deputy Director of the National Museum of History and Technology. Following his tenure as Deputy Director, he served as Keeper of Rare Books at the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, from 1978 until his retirement in 1987. Afterwards, Bedini served as Historian Emeritus at the Smithsonian.
  
  wn.com/Silvio_Bedini
• 
  Strabo
  Strabo,,^{[pronunciation?]}, also written Strabon (Greek: Στράβων; 64/63 BC – ca. AD 24), was a Greek geographer, philosopher and historian.
  Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), a city that he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea. His mother was Georgian. Pontus had recently fallen to the Roman Republic, and although politically he was a proponent of Roman imperialism, Strabo belonged on his mother's side to a prominent family whose members had held important positions under the resisting regime of King Mithridates VI of Pontus.
  Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and time spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae, after which point there is little record of his proceedings until 17 AD.
  
  wn.com/Strabo
• 
  Thales
  Thales of Miletus ( /ˈθeɪliːz/; Greek: Θαλῆς, Thalēs; c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. According to Bertrand Russell, "Western philosophy begins with Thales." Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology and was tremendously influential in this respect. Almost all of the other pre-Socratic philosophers follow him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world—without reference to mythology. Those philosophers were also influential, and eventually Thales' rejection of mythological explanations became an essential idea for the scientific revolution. He was also the first to define general principles and set forth hypotheses, and as a result has been dubbed the "Father of Science", though it is argued that Democritus is actually more deserving of this title.
  
  wn.com/Thales
• Theon of Alexandria
  Theon (Greek: Θέων, gen.: Θέωνος; ca. 335 – ca. 405) was a Greekscholar and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He edited and arranged Euclid's Elements and Ptolemy's Handy Tables, as well as writing various commentaries. His daughter Hypatia also won fame as a mathematician.
  The biographical tradition (Suda) defines Theon as "the man from the Mouseion"; actually, both the Library of Alexandria and the Mouseion may have been destroyed a century before by the Emperor Aurelian during his struggle against Zenobia. Some scholars think that they were closed by the patriarch Theophilus on order of the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius I in 391. Theon was the father of the mathematician Hypatia whose murder was attributed by Socrates Scholasticus to "political jealousy" which instigated mob violence.
  Theon's most durable achievement may be his edition of Euclid's Elements, published around 364 and authoritative into the 19th century. The bulk of Theon's work, however, consisted of commentaries on important works by his Hellenistic predecessors. These included a "conferences" (Synousiai) on Euclid, and commentaries (Exegeseis) on the Handy Tables and Almagest of Ptolemy, and on the technical poet Aratus.
  
  wn.com/Theon_of_Alexandria
• Theon of Smyrna
  Theon of Smyrna (Θέωνος ὁ Σμυρναῖος) (fl. 100 CE) was a Greek philosopher and mathematician, whose works were strongly influenced by the Pythagorean school of thought. His surviving On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato is an introductory survey of Greek mathematics.
  Little is known about the life of Theon of Smyrna. A bust created at his death, and dedicated by his son, was discovered at Smyrna, and art historians date it to around 135 CE. Ptolemy refers several times in his Almagest to a Theon who made observations at Alexandria, but it is uncertain whether he is referring to Theon of Smyrna. The lunar impact crater Theon Senior is named for him.
  Theon wrote several commentaries on the works of mathematicians and philosophers of the time, including works on the philosophy of Plato. Most of these works are lost. The one major survivor is his On Mathematics Useful for the Understanding of Plato. A second work concerning the order in which to study Plato's works has recently been discovered in an Arabic translation.
  
  wn.com/Theon_of_Smyrna
• 
  Thābit ibn Qurra
  Al-Ṣābiʾ Thābit ibn Qurra al-Ḥarrānī (Arabic: ثابت بن قرة‎, Latin: Thebit/Thebith/Tebit; 826 – February 18, 901) was a mathematician, physician, astronomer and translator of the Islamic Golden Age who lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century.
  Ibn Qurra made important discoveries in algebra, geometry and astronomy. In astronomy, Thabit is considered one of the first reformers of the Ptolemaic system, and in mechanics he was a founder of statics.
  Thabit was born in Harran (known as Carrhae in antiquity) in Higher Mesopotamia/Assyria (in modern day Turkey). At the invitation of Muhammad bin Musa bin Shakir, one of the Banu Musa brothers, Thabit went to study in Baghdad at the House of Wisdom. He was an ethnic Assyrian, a native Syriac/Aramaic speaker, and belonged to the Sabians of Harran, a sect of Hermeticists. Other sources credit him to be a Mandaean. In either case, both sects have a great interest in astronomy, astrology, and mathematics (especially in the case of Mandaeans).
  
  wn.com/Thābit_ibn_Qurra
• Timocharis
  Timocharis of Alexandria (ca. 320 BC – 260 BC) was a Greek astronomer and philosopher. Likely born in Alexandria, he was a contemporary of Euclid.^{[citation needed]}
  What little is known about Timocharis comes from citations by Ptolemy in the Almagest. These indicate that Timocharis worked in Alexandria during the 290s and 280s BCE. Ptolemy lists the declination of 18 stars as recorded by Timocharis or Aristillus in roughly the year 290 BCE. Between 295 and 272 BCE, Timocharis recorded four lunar occultations and the passage of the planet Venus across a star. These were recorded using both the Egyptian and Athenian calendars. The observed stellar passage by Venus may have occurred on October 12, 272 BCE when the planet came within 15 arcminutes of the star η Virginis.
  The observations by Timocharis are among the oldest Greek records that can be assigned a specific date. They are only exceeded by records of the summer solstice of 432 BCE, as noted by Euctemon and Meton. Timocharis worked with Aristillus in an astronomical observatory that was most likely part of the Library of Alexandria. Their equipment would have been simple, most likely consisting of gnomons, sundials and an armillary sphere. The two were contemporaries of Aristarchus of Samos, but it is unclear whether there was any association between Timocharis and Aristarchus.
  
  wn.com/Timocharis
• 
  Ulugh Beg
  Ulugh Beg (Uzbek: Muhammad Tarag'ay Ulug'beg, Муҳаммад Тарағай Улуғбек; Persian: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاہرخ الغ‌بیگ‎ – Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh Uluġ Beg) (March 22, 1394 in Sultaniyeh (Persia) – October 27, 1449 (Samarkand)) was a Timurid ruler as well as an astronomer, mathematician and sultan. His commonly-known name is not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as "Great Ruler" or "Patriarch Ruler" and was the Turkic equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic title Amīr-e Kabīr. His real name was Mīrzā Mohammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrokh. Ulugh Beg was also notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry. Being an genius astronomer he built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand between 1424 and 1429. It was considered by scholars to have been one of the finest observatories in the Islamic world at the time and the largest in Central Asia. He also build the Ulugh Beg Madrasah (1417–1420) in Samarkand and Bukhara, transforming the cities into cultural center of learning in Central Asia. He was also a mathematics genius of the 15th century — albeit his mental aptitude was perseverance rather than any unusual endowment of intellect. He ruled Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan for almost half an century from 1411 to 1449 and occupied the Herat province in Afghanistan for an short time in 1448.
  
  wn.com/Ulugh_Beg
• Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq
  Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq (died c. 796 AD) was an 8th-century Persian astronomer and mathematician who lived in Baghdad.
  Works ascribed to Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq include:
  An astrological work called Al‐maqālāt (Chapters) is also ascribed to him by an unreliable source.
  The Zīj, written around 770, was based on a Sanskrit work, thought to be similar to the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta. This work was brought to the court of al-Mansūr from Sindh, reportedly by an Sindhi astronomer named Kankah.
  The Tarkīb al‐aflāk dealt with cosmography, that is, the placement and sizes of the heavenly bodies. Its estimates of the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies were tabulated in al-Bīrūnī's work on India; according to him, Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq gave the radius of the Earth as 1,050 farsakhs, the diameter of the Moon and Mercury as 5,000 farsakhs (4.8 Earth radii), and the diameter of the other heavenly bodies (Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) as 20,000 farsakhs (19.0 Earth radii.)
  
  wn.com/Yaʿqūb_ibn_Ṭāriq

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