Claudius ptolemy biography planets in the sky

Importance to Astronomy

Ptolemy wrote the Almagest around 150 AD. The name Almagest actually comes from the latinized version of the Arabic name for his work, al-majisti, meaning "the greatest." The Greek name, Syntaxis, is short for its original title, The Mathematical Compilation.

With the Almagest, Ptolemy produced the first working, predicitve model of the solar system in the world, and was the culmination of Greek astronomy and the geocentric model.

Claudius ptolemy biography planets in the sky

The Almagest was a complete textbook in mathematical astronomy, and was so successful that it became the standard in mathematical astronomy for 1400 years. The Almagest itself was broken into 13 chapters. He begins by teaching all the mathematics that is needed for the computations in the book, and then goes on to give detailed descriptions of how to make astronomical observations and mathematical models for the sun, moon and planets.

He includes mathematical tables and star c