Today, I will talk about three famous mathematicians, Archimedes of Syracuse, Pythagoras of Samos and Rene Descartes. I will compare the information that I have been able to find about their lives and achievements. Finally, I will try to convince you, as I am, that Archimedes was the best mathematician of all three.
Let's begin with Archimedes. He was born on the east side of the Island of Sicily in the port city of Syracuse. The colony was founded on 734 B.C. and most sources agree that that Archimedes was, probably, born around the year 287 B.C. The way these sources have figured out the year of his birth was by taking as fact the statement of a Byzantine historian, John Tzetzes. Tzetzes stated that Archimedes died at 75 years of age, during an attack to the city of Syracuse on the year 212 B.C. There are myths about his death; one in which he was killed because he refused to stop some calculations on the sand and another myth states that when the attack happened, he tried to surrender and was killed.
Most of the facts about his life come from accounts by Polybius, a Greek historian and Plutarch, another historian and biographer. I have been able to figure out that Archimedes lived most of his life during times of war. King Hiero 11 of Syracuse organized a military coup and took control of the island on 275 B.C and Archimedes was 12. Then, the Punic Wars began. There were three main events on 264 - 241, 218 - 201 and 149 - 146 B.C This means that from his teenage years until his death, there was war and he was in the middle of it.
Back in those days, they did not have blackboards or chalk so the sources say that he used ashes, dust or even sand to draw geometric figures. He worked on his problems for hour...
... middle of paper ...
...e math and geometry problems in a better way.
In conclusion, you could compare Archimedes to the other mathematicians like Pythagoras and Descartes because their work has influenced mathematics but, in my opinion, I don’t think they should really be counted in the category of the greatest mathematicians or even as mathematicians. Pythagoras was known as a “ famous and controversial ancient Greek philosopher” and he mostly worked in his trade, which was philosophy. Descartes was dubbed “The Father of Modern Philosophy” and, as far as I could find, none of his mathematical work was new but a re-write or re-organization of the way math and Algebra was done before. His one truly original work had to do with optics or was more philosophy than math. Archimedes was the only one of the three who did pure math or geometry work and whose inventions were built and used.
Sophocles was one of the most influential writers of Ancient Greece. He was thought to be born around 496 B.C.E. in Colonus, near Athens Greece, and died at around 406 B.C.E. meaning that he only lived for about 90 years. He was born into a wealthy family, his father being Sophillius, and he was an amour manufacturer in the rural community
"What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines which he, in face, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or pen… this ...
From what we can gather, Thucydides was an Athenian Greek born in Alimos in c. 460BC–395BC. Although Thucydides is seen as one of the major figures of the known ancient world, we know relatively little about the man and his life. Most of what we do know is revealed in his own writings, particularly through the account of the Peloponnesian War.
He used the triangles for a wall and bricks and he combined a special technique combined between rectangles and effect linear perspective. Section III Interpretation It is really hard to tell all my opinions of this artwork by words, but by the way, this artwork is really powerful to me. The name that the artist chose to really confirm for this artwork, the
Archimedes was born on 287 B.C in the seaside city of Syracuse. He was a celebrated Mathematician, Physicist, Engineer, Astronomer and Inventor. As a mathematician, Archimedes proved one of the most rigorous geometric theorems, including the area of a circle, surface area and volume of a sphere and the area under a parabola 1 . Though Archimedes was most well-known for his inventions, using his knowledge on Physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering and his intellect, he created three of the most incredible weapons of war: The Archimedes Screw, The Claw of Archimedes and The Heat Ray.
The life of Euripides is still heavily debated on, however, varying renditions of his life have been recorded. He was born around 485 BC in Athens, Greece. In some versions of history, his mother, Cleito, sold herbs in the local market while others describe him as
Euclid and Archimedes are two of the most important scientists and mathematicians of all time. Their achievements and discoveries play a pivotal role in today’s mathematics and sciences. A lot of the very basic principles and core subjects of mathematics, physics, engineering, inventing, and astronomy came from the innovations, inventions, and discoveries that were made by both Euclid and Archimedes.
Pythagoras was one of the first true mathematicians who was not only known for the famous Pythagorean theorem. His father was from Tyre while his mother was from Samos but when Pythagoras was born and growing up he spent most of his time in Samos but as he grew he began to spend a lot of time with his father. His father was a merchant and so Pythagoras travelled extensively with him to many places. He learned things as he went along with his father but the primary teacher known to be in his life was Pherekydes. Thales was also a teacher for himself and he learned some from him but he mainly inspired him. Thales was old when Pythagoras was 20 and so Thales told him to go to Egypt and learn more about the subjects he enjoyed which were cosmology and geometry. In Egypt most of the temples where the learning took place refused him entry and the only one that would was called Diospolis. He was then accepted into the priesthood and because of the discussions between the priests he learned more and more about geome...
Information about lifes of Sophocles and Euripides are very limited and hard to verify. However, many sources match about following information about their biographies. Sophocles was born at 497 or 496 BCE in Colonus Hippius, now a part of Athens. His father was a wealthy merchant and weapon producer and an important figure in their society. So, Sophocles had the opportunity of taking the traditional aristocratic education and studying art in his early age which was a pr...
There isn’t much known about Plato’s early life accept that he was born 428 B.C., both sides of his parents were well off financially and politically, and that he studied under Socrates. Plato was a faithful follower of Socrates, but they did not agree on everything, for instance they had a different view on the education of women. Plato believed that women could be taught and Socrates did not share this view. In Plato’s early 20’s he was very interested in a political career, his Uncle Critas had a major role in overthrowing a democratic government. The Peloponnesian war came to an end with the fall of Athens it was fought between Athens and Sparta during the years 431 BC and 404 BC. Plato served from 409 BC to 404 BC and it was during
We know that he wrote two poems about the Greeks and their gods. The Iliad was Homer’s first epic poem, which tells the story of the Trojan War. His second epic is the Odyssey, which tells the story of a great hero Odysseus, and the adventures he embarks on. Tradition has it that he lived in the 12th century BC, around the time of the Trojan War, in an Ionic settlement, either Chios or Smyrna, where he made his living as a court singer and storyteller.
The Bernoulli family had eight significant and important mathematicians, starting with Jacob Bernoulli, born in 1654. Though there was a great deal of hatred and jealousy between the Bernuollis, they made many remarkable contributions in mathematics and science and helped progress mathematics to become what it is today. For example, Daniel discovered a way to measure blood pressure that was used for 170 years, which advanced the medical field. Daniel’s way of measuring pressure is still used today to measure the air speed of a plane. Without the Bernoulli family’s contributions and advancements to calculus, probability, and other areas of mathematics and science, mathematics would not be where it is now.
Carl Friedrich Gauss is revered as a very important man in the world of mathematicians. The discoveries he completed while he was alive contributed to many areas of mathematics like geometry, statistics, number theory, statistics, and more. Gauss was an extremely brilliant mathematician and that is precisely why he is remembered all through today. Although Gauss left many contributions in each of the aforementioned fields, two of his discoveries in the fields of mathematics and astronomy seem to have had the most tremendous effect on modern day mathematics.
The 17th Century saw Napier, Briggs and others greatly extend the power of mathematics as a calculator science with his discovery of logarithms. Cavalieri made progress towards the calculus with his infinitesimal methods and Descartes added the power of algebraic methods to geometry. Euclid, who lived around 300 BC in Alexandria, first stated his five postulates in his book The Elements that forms the base for all of his later Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi, was born abo...