ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes was, arguably, the world’s greatest

scientist – certainly the greatest scientist of the
classical age.

He was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer,

engineer, inventor, and weapons-designer. As
we’ll see, he was a man who was both of his time
and far ahead of his time.

Archimedes was born in the Greek city-state of

Syracuse on the island of Sicily in approximately
287 BC. His father, Phidias, was an astronomer.

Archimedes may also have been related to Hiero

II, King of Syracuse.

In the 3rd Century BC, Archimedes:

• invented the sciences of mechanics and hydrostatics.

• discovered the laws of levers and pulleys, which allow us to move heavy objects using
small forces.
• invented one of the most fundamental concepts of physics – the center of gravity.
• calculated pi to the most precise value known. His upper limit for pi was the fraction 22⁄7.
This value was still in use in the late 20th century, until electronic calculators finally laid it
to rest.
• discovered and mathematically proved the formulas for the volume and surface area of
a sphere.
• proved that to multiply numbers written as exponents, the exponents should be added
together.
• infuriated mathematicians who tried to replicate his discoveries 18 centuries later – they
could not understand how Archimedes had achieved his results.
• was one of the world’s first mathematical physicists, applying his advanced mathematics
to the physical world.
• was the first person to apply lessons from physics – such as the law of the lever – to
solve problems in pure mathematics.
• invented war machines such as a highly accurate catapult that stopped the Romans
conquering Syracuse for years. He may have done this by understanding the
mathematics of projectile trajectory.
 PYTHAGORAS

PythagorasPythagoras was born in about 570

BC on the Greek island of Samos. Greek
philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the
Pythagorean brotherhood that, although
religious in nature, formulated principles that
influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotleand
contributed to the development
of mathematics and Western rational philosophy.

Pythagoras was taught mathematics by Thales,

who brought mathematics to the Greeks from
Ancient Egypt, and by Anaximander, who was
an earlier student of Thales.

Pythagoreans believed that everything could be

reduced to numbers: the whole universe had
been built using mathematics. They said the
truth behind the everyday reality we experience
lies in numbers.
Modern physicists seeking the ‘theory of everything’ or the ‘grand unification’ are
Pythagoreans. They believe that the universe can be completely understood through
mathematical equations, and they are engaged in a quest to find these equations.
Some of the mathematics came from Egypt and Babylon, so probably came directly
from Pythagoras.

The Pythagoreans and Greeks added something incredibly important to mathematics

that other cultures had not. The Greeks made mathematics rigorous – everything had to
be proved logically. They also carried out pure mathematics – math that had no
practical purpose. They were the first ancient mathematicians to have the same
priorities as modern mathematicians.

Everything is a Number
The Pythagoreans believed that the basis of everything in the universe is numbers.
Modern mathematicians and physical scientists have a similar belief.

The Existence of Numbers

The Pythagoreans were the first people to realize that numbers exist in their own right.
For example, 3 exists. You don’t need 3 people or 3 chickens or 3 lines to justify the
existence of 3. All numbers have their own existence and don’t need to be associated
with real objects to become real.

The Proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem

For a right-angled triangle the sum of the squares on the other two shorter sides equals
the hypotenuse squared. Pythagoras learned this rule from the Egyptians and
Babylonians. It bears his name because Pythagoras was probably the person who
proved it was true for all right angled triangles.

The Discovery and Proof of Irrational Numbers

When you use Pythagoras’s theorem on a triangle whose two shorter sides each have
length of 1, you discover that the length of the hypotenuse is √2.
You can then prove mathematically that there is no ratio of whole numbers which can
produce √2. This is unlike the case of, for example ½, which is the ratio of the whole
numbers 1 and 2, or ¾, which is the ratio of the whole numbers 3 and 4.

If you try to write √2 as a decimal fraction, the digits after the decimal point go on
forever with no repeating pattern.

√2 = 1.414213562373095048801688724202 ……

The mathematical proof that √2 is irrational was found by a Pythagorean.

It may have been found by Hippassus. Some legends say that Hippassus was drowned
for his proof, or for letting people know about it; however, there is little evidence for this.

The discovery of √2 and other irrational numbers was a shock for the Pythagoreans.
One of their core beliefs was that everything in the universe was built using whole
numbers and their ratios. They had to change their beliefs, but this was a painful
process.

The Discovery of the Platonic Solids

There are five highly symmetrical, regular 3D solids. Their symmetry allows them to be
used as dice.

Pythagoras himself established the existence of the first three solids – probably from his
time in Egypt and Babylon. Other Pythagoreans probably discovered how to construct
the other two. The solids are the tetrahedron (4 sides), cube (6 sides), octahedron (8
sides), dodecahedron (12 sides) and icosahedron (20 sides).

These five shapes are called the Platonic Solids after Plato, who believed these shapes
were the basis of the five Ancient Greek elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Aether.

Math and Astronomy

Pythagoras appears to have believed Earth was at the center of the universe. Later
Pythagoreans like Philolaus disagreed. They believed that Earth and everything else,
including the sun, orbited something called the central fire. Nicolaus Copernicus cited
Philolaus when he described his new view of the solar system almost two millennia
later.
 ERATOSSTHENES

Eratosthenes was an Ancient Greek scientist

born in the town of Cyrene in about 276 BC.
Cyrene, then a Greek city, is now the town of
Shahhat in Libya. Eratosthenes was educated in
philosophy and mathematics in Athens. We do
not know what he looked like. The image above
is from a painting by Bernardo Strozzi in the
year 1635, nineteen centuries after the era of
Eratosthenes. It shows Eratosthenes teaching
geography, the academic discipline he founded.

Eratosthenes’ Greatest Achievements

• Eratosthenes produced a reliable, logical

method to discover prime numbers: The Sieve
of Eratosthenes. In an updated form, this is still
important in modern number theory.

• In about 240 BC Eratosthenes calculated

Earth’s size with good accuracy. This was a moment of triumph for the human intellect:
first to recognize our planet is a sphere, then to use the powers of observation,
deduction, and mathematics to calculate its size.

• Eratosthenes saw that the heavens seemed to rotate once a day around Earth. The
axis of rotation formed an imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole through
Earth’s center. Eratosthenes calculated the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to the plane of its
equator with good accuracy.

• He produced the first map of the world featuring meridian lines and parallel lines.
These were similar to our modern lines of latitude and longitude. He marked the equator
and its size, considered the size of the polar zones and how far these zones were from
the tropics. (Evidently, the Ancient Greeks knew a lot about our planet!)

• He invented the armillary sphere, for 1800 years the most important instrument in
astronomy for determining the positions of celestial objects.

• He invented geography. We still use the word he coined for the discipline. (‘Geo’ was
Greek for ‘Earth’ and ‘graphy’ meant ‘field of study.’)

• He produced a timeline recording all of the achievements of science since the time the
Greeks laid siege to Troy.

• He was the first person to explain why the River Nile flooded every year – i.e. heavy,
seasonal rains fall near the source of the river causing an annual flood in Egypt.
 THALES OF MILETUS

Thales of Miletus lived in Ancient Greece. He

was the first scientist in history.

Thales looked for patterns in nature to explain

the way the world worked rather than believing
everything happened only because one of the
Greek gods commanded it. He replaced
superstitions with science.

He was the first person to use deductive logic to

find new results in geometry and, through
requiring proof of theorems, took mathematics to
a new, higher level.

In general what we know of him was written

hundreds of years after he lived, by Aristotle for
example.

When pronouncing his name, we say thail-eez,

emphasizing the first syllable.

There may have been other scientists before Thales, but if there were, we do not know
their names.

Thales was the founder of science in Ancient Greece. He established the Milesian
School, which passed on his knowledge, most notably to Anaximander and Pythagoras.
Greek science and mathematics peaked about 300 years later, in the era
of Archimedes.

The rediscovery of Ancient Greek knowledge was the spark that fired the Renaissance
and Scientific Revolution in Europe, setting science on a course leading to our modern
technological world.

The rejection of superstition in favor of science began with Thales.

Earthquakes

Ancient people believed earthquakes were a measure of their gods’ anger. Sacrifices,
including human sacrifices in some cultures, became the normal way of trying to pacify
angry gods.

Thales sought a rational explanation for earthquakes. He theorized that our whole
planet Earth is a flat disk floating on an infinite sea of water and that earthquakes come
when the planet is hit by a wave traveling through the water. With the benefit of modern
science we know Thales got it wrong.
His theory was, however, an enormous advance on saying the earth shook because
Zeus was annoyed about something. Thales had at least tried to find a rational
explanation for earthquakes.

A further benefit of Thales’ ideas (mercifully) was they required no sacrifices to be

made.

Astronomy

Thales learned about astronomy in Egypt and possibly Babylon.

When Archimedes was killed during the Roman conquest of Syracuse in 212 BC, the
Roman historian Cicero wrote about the event. He tells us the Romans discovered
Archimedes had a machine that accurately predicted the movement of the moon and
planets, and predicted solar and lunar eclipses. (Such a machine has actually been
found by archeologists – it is an amazingly sophisticated device called the Antikythera
Mechanism.)

The Romans also found a more basic globe showing the celestial sphere – a forerunner
of the Antikythera Mechanism – which had first been made by Thales.

Groundbreaking Mathematics

As with astronomy, Thales learned about mathematics in Egypt and possibly Babylon.

Back in Miletus, he built on what he had learned and was the first person to use
deductive logic in mathematics, producing new results in geometry.

He established for the first time that mathematical theorems require proof before they
are accepted as true.

He began transforming mathematics from a practical field of study to one that could be
explored without worrying about practical applications. Hence Thales took great leaps
towards modern pure mathematics, a subject based on deduction and proof,
unconcerned about practical uses for its findings. (Funnily enough, although pure
mathematics is performed with no thought for practical uses, discoveries in pure
mathematics often turn out to be important in the real world!)

Thales established the Milesian School, where he taught mathematics, setting the stage
for mathematics to flourish in Ancient Greece.
 HIPPARCHUS
Hipparchus was one of antiquity’s greatest
scientists. A Greek mathematician and
astronomer, he measured the earth-moon
distance accurately, founded the
mathematical discipline of trigonometry, and
his combinatorics work was unequalled until
1870.

Hipparchus discovered the precession of the

equinoxes and observed the appearance of a
new star – a nova.

He suspected stars might move slowly with

respect to one another over great lengths of
time; he hoped people living in the future
could verify this. To this end he compiled a
star catalog documenting the positions and
magnitudes of over 850 stars. His legacy bore
fruit almost two millennia later when, in 1718,
Edmund Halley discovered the proper motion
of stars.

Trigonometry

Trigonometry simplifies the mathematics of triangles, making astronomy calculations

easier. Trigonometry was probably invented by Hipparchus, who compiled a table of the
chords of angles and made them available to other scholars. Chords are closely related
to sines.

The Earth-Moon Distance

The moon shows a significant amount of parallax when viewed from different locations
on the earth such as Egypt vs Greece.

Parallax Example : When you view something from a different location, it appears at a
different place against the background. In this example, you keep your finger still and
the different locations are your left eye versus your right eye. The finger’s fixed
background is trees. For Hipparchus, the different locations were Greece and Egypt and
the moon’s fixed background was stars.

When a heavenly body shows significant parallax, astronomers can use geometry to
calculate its distance from the earth.

Hipparchus used parallax to measure the earth-moon distance at least twice.

How long is a Year?

To make an accurate, consistent calendar, we need to know how long the tropical year
is – the exact amount of time between one summer solstice and the next one. This is
difficult to measure accurately.

Hipparchus made careful observations and got a better value than anyone before him.
His final figure was only 6 minutes too high.

Earth’s Precession

Hipparchus was the first person to notice the earth’s precession. He did this by noting
the precise locations stars rose and set during equinoxes – the twice yearly dates when
night length and day length are exactly 12 hours. He compared his data with
observations made by an earlier Greek astronomer, Timoarchus, about 160 years
earlier.

He noticed that as the years went by the stars were rising and setting in slightly different
locations.

He said that the rate of precession was at least 1 degree per century – a pretty good
first approximation.

Given that most Greeks thought the earth did not move, Hipparchus probably did not
believe the earth’s orientation in space was changing: he would have thought the
heavens were slowly realigning.

Discovery of a Nova

In 134 BC, observing the night sky from the island of Rhodes, Hipparchus discovered a
new star. He knew the night sky well, so he could be sure the star had never been seen
before.

Star Catalog

Hipparchus completed a star catalog of about 850 stars in 130 BC. He also constructed
a celestial globe, showing the constellations and stars arranged on a sphere.

In his catalog he specified the positions of stars and recorded their relative brightness
(magnitude) on a 1 to 6 scale, where 6 is barely visible and 1 is very bright.
Astronomers today continue to use a similar system for star magnitudes.
 HERON OF ALEXANDRIA

Many Greek scientists were known by the

name Heron or Hero however the multi-faceted
mathematician, scientist, inventor and engineer
mentioned here is the ‘Heron of Alexandria’
who was born in 20 AD. He specialized in the
fields of mechanics, mathematics and physics
representing the works of the Hellenistic
tradition in Science. It is said that his career
started with teaching at the Musaeum however
his achievements as an inventor are most
noteworthy. The ‘Aeolipile’ was one of the first
steam engines created centuries before the
actual industrial revolution. The vending
machine was the brainchild of Heron; the idea
of inserting a coin in a machine for it to perform
a certain function was mentioned in his book
‘Mechanics and Optics’. Heron was also the
first to make a machine that operated with
a windwheel. The theatrical world benefited
from many of his inventions such as the sound
effects like the thunder were produced by metal balls dropping on a drum.

Heron came up with the Principle of the Shortest Path of Light that stated that if a light
ray propagates from one point to another within the same medium the path that it takes
is the shortest one, a theory that was later confirmed and proved with the shortest path
named the ‘Extremum’.

The ‘Heron’s Fountain’, a fountain that operates from hydrostatic energy is also one of
his creations.

Mathematical Work

Heron’s works as an inventor truly reveal his genius but he is also accredited as a
mathematician who delivered a lot to the field with his practical approach. From
approximations of square roots and formulating the area of a triangle to his treatise in
geometry, Heron’s contributions are wide ranging.

The ‘Metrica’ is a series of three books, found by R.Schone in Istanbul in 1896, in which
Heron focuses on calculating areas and volumes of bodies such as pyramids, cones,
cylinders, prisms etc. The infamous ‘Hero’s formula’ was found in this book which stated
the area of a triangle with given sides. Other geometrical works include the ‘Definitions’
which was a list of geometrical terms, ‘Geometrica’ and ‘Sterometrica’. His mathematics
focused primarily on its practical use such as calculating the seating capacity of a
stadium, the number of jars that could be stored on a ship. He was the pioneer of
geometrical terms and symbols. He also developed procedures for finding numerical
square and cube roots. Heron mastered in geodesy, another branch of mathematics
related to finding the size and shape of the earth and the locating objects and areas on
it.

He gave methods of lifting heavy objects with the use of pulleys, levers and wedges. His
book ‘Baroulkos’ which was based on machines and lifting is lost but we know for a fact
that such a book did exist. He worked with mirrors and vault construction and treatise on
surveying.

His knowledge was not limited only to mechanics and mathematics. Heron also
mastered in other field including Cheirobalistra, Belopoeica, Automatopoietica and
Pneumatica.
 HYPATIA

Hypatia was one of the most eminent

mathematicians and astronomers of late
antiquity. Scholars traveled from around the
classical world to learn mathematics and
astronomy at her school.

Her brutal killing at the hands of a frenzied mob

of Christian fanatics shocked the Greco-Roman
world. Hypatia’s murder was a historical
milestone. A thousand years of Mediterranean-
centered European classical culture was in crisis
– five years earlier Rome had been sacked by
the Visigoths. The European Medieval Period,
characterized by a thousand years of relatively
minimal scientific progress, was beginning.

Hypatia of Alexandria’s Work

Hypatia was a devotee of Neoplatonism – a

mystical philosophy with one overriding theme:
that everything in the universe has its origins in ‘the One’ – a transcendent god from
which the Cosmic Soul and the Divine Mind come.

The Astronomy and Mathematics of Hypatia

Hypatia was principally a teacher. The golden days of

Eudoxus, Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Appolonius,
and Hipparchus were as distant from her in time as Fibonacci and Nicolaus
Copernicus are from us.

Hypatia wrote commentaries and reshaped great scientific and mathematical works to
make them more understandable for her students. Her contributions to knowledge lay in
the improvements she made to the original works.

Revising the Almagest

Hypatia’s work on Book III of Claudius Ptolemy’s great second century astronomical
work Almagest still exists. Remarkably, given the number of academic articles written
about Hypatia in recent times, this – her only surviving work – is yet to be given a
modern translation directly into English. A translation into French was made by Adolphe
Rome in 1926.

Book III of the Almagest examines the sun; the length of the year; Hipparchus‘
discovery of the precession of the equinoxes; and an introduction to epicycles.
Epicycles

Ptolemy and then Hypatia tried to build a reliable mathematical model that predicted the
movements of planets.

They were hindered by their traditional beliefs that planets must orbit the earth, and the
orbits must be circular.

Ptolemy used a series of elaborate ploys to produce a working model that accounted for
phenomena such as:

• Retrograde motion: a planet seems to change its direction in the sky.

• Size changes: a planet’s size seems to vary over the course of a period of time.
Algebra
The mathematician Diophantus is a mysterious figure about whom little is known. He
appears to have flourished in Alexandria about a century before Hypatia, when he
authored a series of thirteen books, Arithmetica, describing algebraic equations and
their solutions. Diophantus is often described as the father of algebra.

Prior to later Arabic and Byzantine authors, only one mathematician in history, Hypatia’s
father Theon, cites Diophantus’ Arithmetica. The Byzantine
Encyclopedia Suda compiled in about 1000 AD tells us that Hypatia authored a
commentary on Arithmetica.

Only six of Arithmetica’s books survive in the original Greek; four others exist as Arabic
translations made in about 860 AD.

The Arabic translations of Books 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Arithmetica contain more commentary

on solutions than the Greek versions. These editions may have been copied
from Hypatia’s commentary editions of Arithmetica, modified by her to help students at
her school.

Conic Sections
In The Historia Ecclesiastica, Socrates Scholasticus says that Hypatia wrote a
commentary on Apollonius of Perga’s Conic Sections. This has not survived.
 THEON

Theon of Alexandria was one of the most

eminent mathematicians and astronomers of
late antiquity and the father of Hypatia. His
edition of Euclid’s Elements was used by
mathematicians for over a thousand years after
it supplanted all others, including the original.
Theon simplified some of Euclid’s proofs and
added new proofs of his own.

Theon’s Mathematics
Theon was head of the Mouseion, an academy
that taught Neoplatonist philosophy. Like other
intellectuals of his era, Theon seems to have
made no outstanding breakthroughs – he was
principally a teacher.

The golden days of

Eudoxus, Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Appolonius,

and Hipparchus were as distant in time from Theon as Fibonacci and Nicolaus
Copernicus are from us.

Theon’s Edition of Euclid’s Elements

Theon wrote a new ‘student edition’ of Euclid’s Elements that became the go-to version
for centuries to come. Editions based on Theon’s were the only ones known until an
edition predating his was found in the Vatican Library in 1808. Theon’s edition had
reigned for over a thousand years.

Theon corrected hundreds of years of scribal errors – all books then were handwritten
copies – and simplified Euclid’s original work to assist his students. For example, if he
felt any of Euclid’s proofs were too short he inserted extra lines of reasoning to make it
easier for his students to follow Euclid’s logic.

Eclipses
Theon recorded observations from Alexandria of the solar eclipse on June 16, 364 AD
and the lunar eclipse on November 25 of the same year.

Revising the Almagest

Theon remolded Ptolemy’s great astronomical work Almagest to make it more
understandable for his students. He carried out his reworking in association with his
closest academic colleague, his daughter Hypatia.
The Astrolabe
Theon authored a systematic work on the theory and use of the astrolabe: On the Small
Astrolabe. The word astrolabe comes from two Greek words meaning ‘to follow the
stars.’

The first astrolabe – a spherical astrolabe, more commonly called an armillary sphere –
was invented by Eratosthenes in the third century BC.

Hipparchus, who was one of the greatest of all ancient scientists, realized that by using
stereographic projection from three dimensions into two dimensions he could produce a
more portable version of the spherical astrolabe. This was the small astrolabe described
by Theon.

Although Theon’s work on the small astrolabe no longer exists, it was the basis of later
works such as that by John Philoponus which carried the knowledge to later
astronomers.

In earlier times, the Greeks had built truly awe-inspiring mechanical devices,
including astronomical computers. Unfortunately, this remarkable technology was lost to
future generations.
 MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD

GIVE AT LEAST 5 FAMOUS GREEK MATHEMATICIANS

AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE AND

MATHEMATICS

ISLETA, VANESSA JOYCE R.

SEPTEMBER 28, 208