iamencyclopedia

  Eudoxus of Cnidus   Lived c. 400 — c. 347 BC Eudoxus made momentous advances in mathematics; he was the world’s greatest mathematician before Archimedes. Eudoxus founded mathematical astronomy when he created the first mathematical model of the universe, expressing the movement of the heavens in the language of spherical geometry. In doing so he turned physical reality into something more abstract offering a new vantage point from which we could study the universe. Eudoxus was responsible for the far-reaching theory of proportion expounded in Book V of Euclid’s  Elements : Eudoxus gives the first rigorous definition of what today we call real numbers – the set that includes both rational and irrational numbers. Eudoxus developed the method of exhaustion, giving future mathematicians such as Archimedes a potent tool to calculate areas and volumes. A forerunner of integral calculus, the method of exhaustion allowed Eudoxus to prove the formulas for cone and pyramid volumes. It is the b

  EUCLID OF ALEXANDRIA – The Father of Geometry Who is Euclid The Greek mathematician Euclid lived and flourished in Alexandria in Egypt around 300 BCE, during the reign of Ptolemy I. Almost nothing is known of his life, and no likeness or first-hand description of his physical appearance has survived antiquity, and so depictions of him (with a long flowing beard and cloth cap) in works of art are necessarily the products of the artist’s imagination. He probably studied for a time at  Plato’ s Academy in Athens but, by Euclid’s time, Alexandria, under the patronage of the Ptolemies and with its prestigious and comprehensive Library, had already become a worthy rival to the great Academy. Euclid is often referred to as the “ Father of Geometry ”, and he wrote perhaps the most important and successful mathematical textbook of all time, the “ Stoicheion ” or “ Elements ”, which represents the culmination of the mathematical revolution which had taken place in Greece up to that time. He al