Menelaus of alexandria biography of albert

(fl. Alexandria and Rome, a.d. 100)

geometry, trigonometry, astronomy.

Ptolemy records that Menelaus made two astronomical observations at Rome in the first year of the reign of Trajan, that is, a.d.

Menelaus of alexandria biography of albert einstein

98.¹ This dating accords with Plutarch’s choice of him as a character in a dialogue supposed to have taken place at or near Rome some lime after a.d.75.² He is called “Menelaus of Alexandria” by Pappus and Proclus.³ Nothing more is known of his life.

The first of the observations that Ptolemy records was the occulation of the star Spica by the moon at the tenth hour in the night (that is, 4 a.m.

in seasonal hours or 5 a.m. in standard hours) of the fifteenthsixteenth of the Egyptian month Mechir and its emergence at the eleventh hour.⁴ In the second observation Menelaus noticed that at the eleventh hour in the night of 18–19 Mechir the southern horn of the moon appeared to fall in line with the middle and southern stars in the brow of Scorpio, whi