When we think of Greek mathematics, we think of Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga: elegant proofs and general rules. Alongside that tradition ran a humbler one, which rarely makes it into textbooks. It was maths for getting a job done, and a new study argues that the people who practised it leaned heavily on […]
To this Greek philosopher, follower of Pythagoras and teacher of Heraclitus, to whom he instilled the idea that the arché or principle of all things was fire, are attributed—disputably—the discovery of irrational numbers, the construction of a dodecahedron inscribed in a sphere, and several works on acoustics. He also founded a mathematical section in the […]
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