Aydın Sayılı was a historian of science. His career was aided by chance meeting with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....

, whom he impressed enough to receive a state-supported scholarship to attend graduate school at Harvard, where he studied under George Sarton

George Sarton

George Sarton was a Belgian chemist and historian who is considered the founder of the discipline of history of science. He left Belgium because of the First World War and settled in the United States where he spent the rest of his life researching and writing about the history of science...

.

Sayılı's portrait is depicted on the reverse

Obverse and reverse

Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags , seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse...

 of the Turkish 5 lira

Turkish lira

The Turkish lira is the currency of Turkey and the de facto independent state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The lira is subdivided into 100 kuruş...

 banknote issued in 2009.

Works

The Observatory in Islam, Arno Press, June 1981, part of The Development of Science: Sources for the History of Science Series (Advisory Editor I. Bernard Cohen

I. Bernard Cohen

I. Bernard Cohen was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the history of science at Harvard University and the author of many books on the history of science and, in particular, Isaac Newton....

), ISBN 0-4051-3951-9