Although not much is known about his life, he is considered as one of the most eminent scientists and mathematicians of the classical era. It has taken him three years to write this review, in part because he wanted to read the book so carefully.Archimedes of Syracuse was an outstanding ancient Greek mathematician, inventor, physicist, engineer and also an astronomer. Gouvêa is Carter Professor of Mathematics at Colby College, editor of MAA Reviews, and crazy about books. And keep your eyes open for the other volumes.įernando Q. Have your library buy them one by one, and the financial pain will be less. Perhaps once the complete translation is done we can ask Cambridge to produce a version with the Greek text and facing translation, perhaps without all the notes, for weird folks like me.įor anyone seriously interested in Archimedes and in Greek mathematics, this is the edition to have. Unfortunately, that edition is not very easy to obtain. Netz says that he is mostly using Heiberg's text as published by Teubner (when he deviates from that, he tells us). I would have liked (especially given the price) to have the Greek too. I hope Netz will undertake that eventually, perhaps after he finishes the translation itself. In addition, Heath's edition is prefaced by a long introduction discussing Archimedes' life and work. What is missing? Well, the most obvious thing is that this is only the first volume of Netz's translation. Finally, Netz's notes are interesting and different, focusing less on the mathematics and more on Archimedes' thought processes, mode of expression, and goals. (The diagram in Heath is nothing like the diagram in the manuscripts, it seems.) He also gives us a translation of Eutocius' commentary on these two books, which provides insight on how Archimedes was read and understood (or not) a few centuries later. He discusses the diagrams as they appear in the textual tradition, noting in particular their variation. In addition, Netz gives us useful extras. We can understand and admire him, but we also understand how different he is from us.
Rather than "a fellow of another college", Archimedes is revealed as an inhabitant of Ancient Syracuse working within the Ancient Greek mathematical tradition. Reading Archimedes in Netz's translation, one feels much more clearly how different Greek mathematics is from modern mathematics. Second, Netz is considerably harder to read, parse, and absorb. First, the difference between Netz's literal translation and Heath's paraphrase gets much bigger as the complexity of the arguments increases. Proposition 1 is probably the easiest one in this book two things should then be noted.
If we are interested, for example, in how Archimedes dealt with generality, it seems very significant that he worked with a specific polygon (a pentagon, in fact), enumerating its sides one by one! Netz gives us what Archimedes wrote.ĭoes it matter? Well, it depends what we are trying to do.
The works of archimedes free#
In sum, Heath tells us what (he thinks) Archimedes meant, but feels free to modernize notation and shorten the text. I say that the perimeter of the polygon is greater than the perimeter of the circle.įor since BAΛ taken together is greater than the circumference BΛ through its containing the circumference while having the same limits, similarly ΔΓ, ΓB taken together are ΔB as well and ΛK, KΘ taken together than ΛΘ and ZHΘ taken together than ZΘ and once more, ΔE, EZ taken together than ΔZ therefore the whole perimeter of the polygon is greater than the circumference of the circle. If a polygon is circumscribed around a circle, the perimeter of the circumscribed polygon is greater than the perimeter of the circle.įor let a polygon - the one set down - be circumscribed around a circle. Let any two adjacent sides, meeting in A, touch the circle at P, Q respectively.Ī similar inequality holds for each angle of the polygon and, by addition, the required result follows. If a polygon be cricumscribed about a circle, the perimeter of the circumscribed polygon is greater than the perimeter of the circle. But consider the first proposition in On Sphere and Cylinder. Well, Heath's edition is useful, and it has served the English-speaking world well. "Wait a minute! What about Heath's translation of Archimedes? That's in the MAA's Basic Library List already, and since it is a Dover book, I can even afford a copy!" Anyone interested in the work of Archimedes will want it too, though they may well be scared away by the price. Ergo, every library needs a copy of this book. This is the only available English translation of his work. Archimedes was the most creative, the most powerful, and in many ways the most interesting of the mathematicians of the Ancient World.
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