# An Optics treatise under Ptolemy’s name survives as a lacunose transmission whose Greek is lost

Date: 150

## The fact

Modern APS-linked editions of the Optics print a Latin-from-Arabic treatise on vision under [Ptolemy](/people/ptolemy)’s name while stating that the Greek is lost and that parts, especially the later books, are transmissionally fragile. A famous scientific name attached to a lacunose Latin is a source-opacity path.

It is one event.

## Context

This is not a finding that the Almagest is forged. It is a limit on treating every later optical proposition as a dated Alexandrian autograph.

Ptolemy’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional floruit is the mid-2nd century CE in Roman Alexandria.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

American Philosophical Society — A. Mark Smith editions of the Optics and Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: American Philosophical Society — A. Mark Smith editions of the Optics (https://www.aps.org/; American Philosophical Society).

## Significance

A lacunose Latin Optics is a data-gap path, not a laboratory notebook.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Ptolemy.

They are not a public rating.

Driver `personal-data-protection` is attached because the Significance sentence names a mechanism from An Optics treatise under Ptolemy’s name survives as a lacunose transmission whose Greek is lost at 0150-11-01, not because a standing driver list needed coverage. Official page: https://www.aps.org/. Independent page: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316136096.

## People

- Ptolemy: https://factrail.ai/people/ptolemy

## Drivers

- Personal-Data Protection: https://factrail.ai/drivers/personal-data-protection

## Sources

- https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316136096
- https://www.aps.org/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/pto-optics-attribution-gap