Archimedes

• He studied in Alexandria before Christ,. Little is known about his life, and many of the stories and
anecdotes about him were written by historians of ancient Rome long after his death.

1. Method of Exhaustion

Approximation of the area of a circle by Archimedes’ method of exhaustion

•He created formulas to calculate the areas of regular shapes using a revolutionary method to
capture new shapes using shapes he already knew.

Example:

•To estimate the area of a circle, he built a larger polygon outside the circle and a smaller one inside
the circle. He enclosed the circle first in a triangle, then in a square, pentagon, hexagon, etc., etc., With
this so-called “exhaustion method” (or simply “Archimede’s method”)
 •He arrived at a value for one of the most important numbers in all mathematics, π. His estimate was
between 31⁄7 (around 3.1429) and 310⁄71 (around 3.1408), which is very much in agreement with his true
value of around 3.1416.

2. Quadrature of the Parabola

Archimedes’ quadrature of the parabola using his method of

exhaustion

•Archimedes’ most sophisticated use of the method of

exhaustion, which remained unsurpassed until the
development of integral calculus in the 17 th Century, was his
proof – known as the Quadrature of the Parabola.

•The area of a parabolic segment is 4⁄3 that of a certain

inscribed triangle. He dissected the area of a parabolic
segment (the region enclosed by a parabola and a line) into
infinitely many triangles whose areas form a geometric
progression.

•He then computed the sum of the resulting geometric series and proved that this is the area of the
parabolic segment.

•Archimedes determined that the area of a circle was equal to its radius squared and multiplied by pi.
He determined the area of a parabola or any portion of it created by a straight line. Most famously, he
figured out how to measure the volume of a sphere from a cylinder with the same dimensions.

•The area bounded by the intersection of a line and a parabola is 4/3 that of the triangle having the
same base and height;

•The area of an ellipse is proportional to a rectangle having sides equal to its major and minor axes;

•The volume of a sphere is 4 times that of a cone having a base of the same radius and height equal to
this radius;

•The volume of a cylinder having a height equal to its diameter is 3/2 that of a sphere having the same
diameter;

•The area bounded by one spiral rotation and a line is 1/3 that of the circle having a radius equal to the
line segment length;
Eratosthenes

•Eratosthenes was born in 276 BC in today’s “Libya”.

•He studied in Alexandria and in 236 BC. Was elected librarian for the Alexandria Library.

• It is not only known that during their time he calculated the circumference of the earth using stadiums,
but also the inclination of the earth’s axis. He was also the first to use the term “geography” and
presented the longitude and latitude system.

•One of the most remarkable things done by Eratosthenes included his effort to calculate the Earth’s
circumference without leaving the comfortable perimeters of Egypt.

Eratosthenes reasoned that if:

1. you make the assumption that planet Earth is a sphere

2. the sun’s rays are parallel to one another when they reach Earth

3. you measure the angle of the shadow in Alexandria when there is no shadow in Cyrene

4. you know the distance between Alexandria and Cyrene

•Eratosthenes also discovered an algorithm to determine prime numbers which is known as the Sieve
of Eratosthenes.

Prime numbers are those numbers with no factors except for themselves and 1. Prime numbers are the
building blocks of all other numbers.

The first eight prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19. The prime numbers go on forever. There
are an infinite number of them.

•He also invented the armillary sphere.