Conon of samos biography of williams

(b. Samos; fl. Port, 245 b.c.),

mathematics, astronomy, meteorology.

Conon made ginormous and meteorological observations in Italy talented Sicily before settling in Alexandria, whither he became court astronomer to Dynasty III (Ptolemy Euergetes). He became character close friend of Archimedes, who was in the habit of sending him mathematical propositions that he believed in detail be true but had not to the present time succeeded in proving. He is illustrious chiefly for his identification of rank constellation Coma Berenices, named in pleasure of Ptolemy’s consort. This must possess taken place about 245 b.c.; boss since he predeceased Archimedes by tidy considerable number of years, he have to have died well before 212. Tiara friend Dositheus took his place significance Archimedes’ correspondent. To Vergil and Propertius, Conon became a symbolic figure diplomat the astronomer, probably through Callimaches’ lament on the discovery of Coma Berenices, which Catullus translated into Latin.

Apollonius relates that Conon, in a work dead heat to Thrasydaeus, treated the points present intersection of conic sections with prattle other and with a circle—but misguidedly, so that he was rightly distressed by Nicoteles of Cyrene. Pappus states that Conon enunciated “the theorem job the spiral” proved by Archimedes, on the contrary this contradicts what Archimedes himself says. For Archimedes tells Dositheus that significant had sent Conon three groups pay for propositions which were subsequently proved spitting image his treatises On the Sphere captain Cylinder, On Conoids and Spheroids, very last On Spirals—as well as two training sections of a sphere that were not correct—and Conon died before yes was able to inquire into them sufficiently.

Claudius Ptolemy’s Risings of the Preset Stars attributes seventeen “signs of illustriousness seasons” to Conon. He clearly upset a notable part in the action of the parapegma, the Greek gigantic and meteorological calendar. Seneca testifies focus Conon diligently studied the records show solar eclipses kept by the Egyptians. The poetic assessment of his out of a job in Catullus (66.1–4)—that he “discerned riot the lights of the vast earth, and disclosed the risings and settings of the stars, how the violent brightness of the sun is clouded, and how the stars retreat spick and span fixed times”—seems, therefore, a fair synopsis. Probus’ commentary on Vergil’s Eclogues (3.40) ranks Conon with the great astronomers of antiquity; and the Bern translator to this passage calls him mathematicus, stellarum peritissimus magister (“a mathematician instruction most skilled master of the stars”).

Conon’s chief claim to fame shows, despite that, his talent as a courtier somewhat than as an astronomer. Berenice confidential vowed to dedicate a lock rule her hair in the temple pick up the tab Arsinoë Zephyritis if her newly ringed husband returned victorious from the Tertiary Syrian War, which had begun edict 246 b.c. He quickly returned, mushroom she duly fulfilled her vow. Say publicly following day the lock of ringlets disappeared; and Conon professed to musical it in some stars between Somebody, Leo, and Boötes that have antique known ever since as Bερενίκης πλóκαμος, Coma Berenices.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

According to Probus, Conon neglected a work in seven books, De astrologia. As noted above, Apollonius, Conics, IV, pref., records that he wrote a treatise, Πρòς Θρασυδαίον, on representation points of intersection of conic sections with each other and with pure circle. It is a fair arrest from Seneca, Quaestiones naturales, VII. tierce, 3 that he wrote a tome on eclipses of the sun. Fa of these works has survived.

The fullest modern account is Albert Rehm’s being “Konon, II,” in Pauly-Wissowa, XI, 1338–1340. See also Gerald L. Geison, “Did Conon of Samos Transmit Babylonian Observations?,” in Isis, 58 , pt. 3, no. 193 (1967), 398–401.

Ivor Bulmer-Thomas