The Works of Archimedes

Archimedes

may 2013 · Courier Corporation

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The complete works of antiquity's great geometer appear here in a highly accessible English translation by a distinguished scholar. Remarkable for his range of thought and his mastery of treatment, Archimedes addressed such topics as the famous problems of the ratio of the areas of a cylinder and an inscribed sphere; the measurement of a circle; the properties of conoids, spheroids, and spirals; and the quadrature of the parabola. This edition offers an informative introduction with many valuable insights into the ancient mathematician's life and thought as well as the views of his contemporaries. Modern mathematicians, physicists, science historians, and logicians will find this volume a source of timeless fascination.

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Archimedes was a mathematician and inventor, born in Syracuse, Sicily, about 287 B.C. He became famous for his law of the lever and for inventing the catapult, parabolic mirror, and the mechanical crane that was capable of capsizing a ship by overturning it. These inventions were designed to defend Syracuse during the Second Punic War, which were waged between Rome and Carthage. While Archimedes made fundamental contributions to physics, his greatest contributions were to theoretical mathematics. Some of his works have come down to us. When Syracuse was taken in 212 B.C., Archimedes was killed by the Roman soldiers, being at the time intent upon a mathematical problem.