Barry Ptolemy Barry Ptolemy Robert Barry Ptolemy (born 1969) is an American film director, producer and writer. Ptolemy directed "Transcendent Man" (2009) a documentary film about futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil. Ptolemy was born in Los Angeles, California. His father introduced him to computers at an early age, giving him a lifelong interest in technology. At the age of 12, Ptolemy worked with Steven Spielberg on the set of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) as an animal wrangler. Inspired by working with Spielberg the next year in 1983 Ptolemy directed and produced his first short film "The Holograph" which won first place in
Ptolemy the fact that Ptolemy bore it indicates he lived under the Roman rule of Egypt with the privileges and political rights of Roman citizenship. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemy's family to become a citizen (whether he or an ancestor) took the "nomen" from a Roman called Claudius who was responsible for granting citizenship. If, as was common, this was the emperor, citizenship would have been granted between AD 41 and 68 (when Claudius, and then Nero, were Roman emperors). The astronomer would also have had a "praenomen", which remains unknown. The ninth-century Persian astronomer Abu