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800 year old four-dial combination lock with over 4.2 billion possible combos made by an Iranian astrolabe maker named Muhammad ibn Hamid al- Asturlabi.
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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Almost nominative determinism. !nominativedeterminism@feddit.uk
It's kind of the reverse, the 'al-Asturlabi' is a description saying he makes astrolabes, I've found various sources with slight variations on his name, but 'Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Asturlabi al-Isfahani' seems to be generally accepted and roughly means "Muhammad, son of Hamid, maker of astrolabes, from Isfahani". It's a bit of a mouthful, but the astrolabe bit was grafted on after he started making them.
From Isfahan, Isfahani is the term for someone from Isfahan
If I saw a name like that for an astrolabe inventor in fiction I'd say the author was lazy