Menelaus of alexandria biography examples
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Menelaus of Alexandria
Greek mathematician and astronomer (c. 70–140)
Menelaus of Alexandria (; Ancient Greek: Μενέλαος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Menelaos ho Alexandreus; c. 70 – 140 CE) was a Greek[1]mathematician and astronomer, the first to recognize geodesics on a curved surface as natural analogs of straight lines.
Life and works
[edit]Although very little is known about Menelaus's life, it is supposed that he lived in Rome, where he probably moved after having spent his youth in Alexandria. He was called Menelaus of Alexandria by both Pappus of Alexandria and Proclus, and a conversation of his with Lucius, held in Rome, is recorded by Plutarch.
Ptolemy (2nd century CE) also mentions, in his work Almagest (VII.3), two astronomical observations made by Menelaus in Rome in January of the year 98. These were occultations of the stars Spica and Beta Scorpii by the moon, a few nights apart. Ptolemy used these observations to confirm precession of the equinoxes, a phenomenon that had been discovered by Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE.
In the 10th-century Kitāb al-Fihrist [The Book Catalogue] by Ibn al-Nadīm, six books by Menelaus are mentioned: the Book of Spherical Propositions (Sphaerica), On the Knowledge of the Weights and Dis
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CHAPTER 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS
Rashed, Roshdi and Papadopoulos, Athanase. "CHAPTER 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS". Menelaus' ›Spherics‹: Trusty Translation ahead al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424-003
Rashed, R. & Papadopoulos, A. (2017). Buttress 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS. Diminution Menelaus' ›Spherics‹: Early Interpretation and al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version (pp. 3-22). Songwriter, Boston: Put a bet on Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424-003
Rashed, R. extract Papadopoulos, A. 2017. Piling 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS. Menelaus' ›Spherics‹: At Translation skull al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424-003
Rashed, Roshdi and Papadopoulos, Athanase. "CHAPTER 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS" Superimpose Menelaus' ›Spherics‹: Early Paraphrase and al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version, 3-22. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424-003
Rashed R, Papadopoulos A. Strut 1: MENELAUS AND HIS WRITINGS. In: Menelaus' ›Spherics‹: Early Conversion and al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version. Songwriter, Boston: Gap Gruyter; 2017. p.3-22. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424-003
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Menelaus of Alexandria
Biography
Although we know little of Menelaus of Alexandria's life Ptolemy records astronomical observations made by Menelaus in Rome on the 14th January in the year 98. These observation included that of the occultation of the star Beta Scorpii by the moon.He also makes an appearance in a work by Plutarch who describes a conversation between Menelaus and Lucius in which Lucius apologises to Menelaus for doubting the fact that light, when reflected, obeys the law that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Lucius says (see for example [1]):-
In your presence, my dear Menelaus, I am ashamed to confute a mathematical proposition, the foundation, as it were, on which rests the subject of catoptrics. Yet it must be said that the proposition, "All reflection occurs at equal angles" is neither self evident nor an admitted fact.This conversation is supposed to have taken place in Rome probably quite a long time after 75 AD, and indeed if our guess that Menelaus was born in 70 AD is close to being correct then it must have been many years after 75 AD.
Very little else is known of Menelaus's life, except that he is called Menelaus of Alexandria by both Pappus and Proclus. All we can deduce from this is that he spent some time in both