The Legacy of Ptolemy’s Almagest

Initial Conditions: A Physics History Podcast

This episode dives into the story of the oldest book in NBLA’s Wenner Collection: a 1528 Latin translation of the Almagest. Claudius Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, originally titled Mathēmatikē Syntaxis, in the 2nd century CE. In the Almagest, Ptolemy proposed a mathematical model to explain and predict the motions of celestial objects. Though his geocentric model was debunked by the 16th century, the text facilitated the great observations and models produced by medieval Arabic astronomers. This episode follows the Almagest throughout its 1500 years of influence, focusing on its importance during the rise and spread of Islam in the 7th century and the text’s eventual fall from popularity in sixteenth century Europe. This episode features interviews with prominent scholars, George Saliba (Director of the Farouk Jabre Center for Arabic & Islamic Science and Philosophy at the American University of Beirut) and John Hessler (Curator at the Library of Congress and author of A Renaissance Globemaker's Toolbox: Johannes Schöner and the Revolution of Modern Science 1475-1550).