HackingTheUniverse

al-Battani (Abu Abdallah Mohammad ibn Jabir Al-Battani) was born around 850 in Turkey (then Mesopotamia) and was a mathematician and astronomer. He advanced the accuracy of astronomical observations beyond that established in Ptolemy’s “Almagest”, including the motion of five planets and the length of our solar year. He catalogued 489 stars. He pioneered the use of trigonometry for his calculations instead of simple geometry.

PRECURSOR:
0085 – Ptolemy
0499 – Aryabhatiya

CONCURRENT:
0872 – al-Farabi

SUBSEQUENT:
0980 – ibn Sina
1048 – Omar Khayyam
1473 – Copernicus
1546 – Brahe
1564 – Galileo
1571 – Kepler