Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi (1377 – 15 April 1446), often called Filippo Brunelleschi (pronounced BROO-nuh-LESK-ee) and nicknamed Pippo by Leon Battista Alberti, was an Italian architect, designer, goldsmith, and sculptor. He is regarded as one of the first people to start Renaissance architecture. He is known as the first modern engineer, planner, and the only person who oversaw the construction of buildings.
Johannes Gutenberg was born around 1398 and died on February 3, 1468. He was a German inventor and craftsman who created the movable-type printing press. Although movable type was already used in East Asia, Gutenberg’s invention made printing much faster.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, and died on May 2, 1519. He was an Italian man from the High Renaissance era who worked as a painter, artist, engineer, scientist, writer, sculptor, and architect. He became most famous for his paintings, but he is also well known for his notebooks, where he drew and wrote about many subjects, such as the human body, stars, plants, maps, art, and ancient animals.
Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma’ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi (1526–1585) was an Ottoman expert in many fields who lived and worked in Cairo and Istanbul. He wrote more than ninety books on subjects such as astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy. In 1574, the Ottoman Sultan Murad III asked Taqi ad-Din to build an observatory in Istanbul.
Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-‘Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari, who lived from about 936 to 1013, was an Arab doctor, surgeon, and scientist from al-Andalus. He is widely regarded as one of the most important surgeons during the Middle Ages. His most important work is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a 30-volume book that explains many medical practices.
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, also known as al-Khwarizmi (around 780 to around 850), was a mathematician who lived during the Islamic Golden Age. He wrote important books in Arabic about mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820, he worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, which was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate at that time.
Ibn al-Haytham, known in Latin as Alhazen (about 965–1040), was a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist from present-day Iraq during the Islamic Golden Age. He is called “the father of modern optics” because of his important work on how light and vision work. His most famous book, Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Book of Optics), was written between 1011 and 1021.
Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbbās ibn Firnās ibn Wardās al-Tākurunnī (Arabic: أَبُو ٱلْقَاسِمِ، عَبَّاسُ بْنُ فِرْنَاسِ بْنِ وَرْدَاسَ ٱلتَّاكُرُنِّيُّ; about 809/810–887 CE), also known as ʿAbbās ibn Firnās (Arabic: عَبَّاسُ بْنُ فِرْنَاسٍ), was an Andalusi expert in many fields. He was an inventor, astronomer, doctor, chemist, engineer, musician, and poet. He is reported to have tried to fly without using machines.
Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī (1136–1206, Arabic: بَدِيعُ الزَّمانِ أَبُو العِزِّ بْنُ إسْماعِيلَ بْنِ الرَّزَّازِ الجَزَرِيّ, [ældʒæzæriː]) was a person with many talents. He was a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, artisan, and artist from the Artuqid Dynasty of Jazira in Mesopotamia. He is most famous for writing a book called The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Arabic: كتاب في معرفة الحيل الهندسية, romanized: Kitab fi ma’rifat al-hiyal al-handasiya, also known as Automata) in 1206.
Shen Kuo (1031–1095), also known as Shen Gua, was a Chinese expert in many areas, including mathematics, optics, and timekeeping. He worked as a government official and held important roles such as finance minister, head of the Bureau of Astronomy, and academic chancellor. He supported the Reformist group led by Chancellor Wang Anshi.