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100
Claudius Ptolemy
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Period: 100 to 170
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy was an Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. The first was his astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest, originally entitled Mathematical Treatise. -
476
Aryabhata
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Period: 476 to 550
Aryabhata
Aryabhata was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. His works include the Āryabhaṭīya and the Arya-siddhanta. For his explicit mention of the relativity of motion, he also qualifies as a major early physicist. -
Feb 14, 1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
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Period: Feb 19, 1473 to May 24, 1543
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. -
1564
Galileo Galilei
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Period: Feb 15, 1564 to
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science. -
1571
Johannes Kepler
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Period: Dec 27, 1571 to
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. -
Christiaan Huygens
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Period: to
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. In physics, Huygens made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he studied the rings of Saturn and discovered its largest moon, Titan. -
Sir Isaac Newton
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Period: to
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. -
Edmond Halley
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Period: to
Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Halley catalogued the southern celestial hemisphere and recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun. -
William Herschel
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Period: to
William Herschel
Frederick William Herschel was a German-British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, William Herschel followed his father into the military band of Hanover, before emigrating to Great Britain in 1757 at the age of nineteen. -
Edwin Hubble
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Period: to
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances.