Abu’l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani, born in Farghana, Transoxiana, was one of the most distinguished astronomers in the service of al-Mamun and his successors. He wrote "Elements of Astronomy " (Kitab fi al-Harakat al-Samawiya wa Jawami Ilm al-Nujum i.e. the book on celestial motion and thorough science of the stars), which was translated into Latin in the 12th century and exerted great influence upon European astronomy before Regiomontanus. He accepted Ptolemy’s theory and value of the precession, but thought that it affected not only the stars but also the planets. He determined the diameter of the earth to be 6,500 miles, and found the greatest distances and also the diameters of the planets. Al-Farghani’s activities extended to engineering. According to Ibn Tughri Birdi, he supervised the construction of the Great Nilometer at al-Fustat (old Cairo). It was completed in 861, the year in which the Caliph al-Mutawakkil, who ordered the construction, ...
A bdallah Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Battani al-Harrani was born around 858 C.E. in Harran, and according to one account, in Battan, a State of Harran. Battani was first educated by his father Jabir Ibn San’an al-Battani, who was also a well-known scientist. He then moved to Raqqa, situated on the bank of the Euphrates, where he received advanced education and later on flourished as a scholar. At the beginning of the 9th century, he migrated to Samarra, where he worked till the end of his life in 929 C.E. He was of Sabian origin, but was himself a Muslim. Battani was a famous astronomer, mathematician and astrologer . He has been held as one of the greatest astronomic of Islam. He is responsible for a number of important discoveries in astronomy, which was the result of a long career of 42 years of research beginning at Raqqa when he was young. His well-known discovery is the remarkably accurate determination of the solar year as being 365 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds...
Alexander Bain, a Scottish clock and instrument maker, invented the first electrical clock, patented the basics of facsimile, developed chemical telegraph receivers and punch-tapes to speed up telegraph transmission. He was an all-round inventor and technician who later installed the first telegraph lines alongside the railway between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
A plaque to Alexander Bain in Wick
Alexander Bain and his twin sister Margaret were born in October 1811 of humble parents near Watten, between Thurso and Wick in Caithness, at the extreme north of Scotland. Their dad was a crofter, and he had six sisters and six brothers. They grew up in a remote stone cottage at Leanmore, a few miles north of Wick. The vast expanse of peaty countryside has only occasional scattered cottages, and the Bain house, close to a small wood, became a sheep byre, and is now little more than an outline of low stonewalls. In the winter Sandy walked a mile or two to school in Backlass; in the summer h...
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