Al Beruni - Great Scientist and Physicist

Al Beruni

Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Bīrūnī often known as Alberuni, Al Beruni or variants, was born on the 5th September 973 in Kath in what was then the state of Khwarezm (now the town of Beruni in Southern Karakalpakstan) and died on the 13th December 1048 in Ghazni, in today's Afghanistan.

He was a scientist and physicist, an anthropologist and comparative sociologist, an astronomer and chemist, a critic of alchemy and astrology, an encyclopedist and historian, a geographer and traveler, a geodesist and geologist, a mathematician, a pharmacist and psychologist, an Islamic philosopher and theologian, scholar and teacher.

Al Beruni was the first Muslim scholar to study India and the Brahminical tradition, and has been described as the founder of Indology, the father of geodesy, and "the first anthropologist".

He was also one of the earliest leading exponents of the experimental scientific method, and was responsible for introducing the experimental method into mechanics and mineralogy, a pioneer of comparative sociology and experimental psychology, and one of the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena.

Two important scientific chroniclers George Sarton, who described Biruni as "one of the very greatest scientists of Islam, and, all considered, one of the greatest of all times." and A. I. Sabra as "one of the great scientific minds in all history."

The crater Al-Biruni on the Moon is named after him. Tashkent Technical University (formerly Tashkent Polytechnic Institute) is also named after Abu Rayhan al-Biruni as is a technical university in Kapisa, Afghanistan.

Source: Wikipedia see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C5%AB_Ray%E1%B8%A5%C4%81n_al-B%C4%ABr%C5%ABn%C4%AB for more information.