 |
 |
Archimedes and Method of Exhaustion Information
Name: Matthew Johnson
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
I am interested in finding out about the method of exhaustion used by
Archimedes to find the area of a sphere. We talked a little about this
in my calculus class, but did not have the time to hear about this early
version of calculus before it became "discovered". I would like to know
about the notation used by Archimedes, what he discovered, and where to
find more about this interesting early math history.
I would appreciate a response here. Thank you.
Replies:
A book available in many libraries, I expect, is The Works of Archimedes
with the Method of Archimedes edited by T. L. Heath (Dover Reprint).
Heath translates the work into modern notation. This is reasonable since
we are trained to read modern form, much of which did not exist in the
time of Archimedes. For another source, in which the author claims to
produce a notation for the purpose of bringing us closer to the times
of the work, is "Archimedes", by E. J. Dijksterhuis (Princeton U. Press,
1987, ISBN 0691084211).
tee
Click here to return to the Mathematics Archives
| |
Update: June 2012
|
|
