Thomas Little Heath Quotes

Sir Thomas Little Heath was a British civil servant, mathematician, classical scholar, historian of ancient Greek mathematics, translator, and mountaineer. He was educated at Clifton College. Heath translated works of Euclid of Alexandria, Apollonius of Perga, Aristarchus of Samos, and Archimedes of Syracuse into English. Wikipedia  

✵ 5. October 1861 – 16. March 1940
Thomas Little Heath photo
Thomas Little Heath: 46   quotes 0   likes

Famous Thomas Little Heath Quotes

“Greek mathematics reveals an important aspect of the Greek genius of which the student of Greek culture is apt to lose sight.”

Preface p. v
A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1. From Thales to Euclid

Thomas Little Heath Quotes about mathematics

Thomas Little Heath Quotes about problems

Thomas Little Heath Quotes

“If one would understand the Greek genius fully, it would be a good plan to begin with their geometry.”

Preface p. vi
A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1. From Thales to Euclid

“It may be in some measure due to the defects of notation in his time that Diophantos will have in his solutions no numbers whatever except rational numbers, in [the non-numbers of] which, in addition to surds and imaginary quantities, he includes negative quantities. …Such equations then as lead to surd, imaginary, or negative roots he regards as useless for his purpose: the solution is in these cases ὰδοπος, impossible. So we find him describing the equation 4=4x+20 as ᾰτοπος because it would give x=-4. Diophantos makes it throughout his object to obtain solutions in rational numbers, and we find him frequently giving, as a preliminary, conditions which must be satisfied, which are the conditions of a result rational in Diophantos' sense. In the great majority of cases when Diophantos arrives in the course of a solution at an equation which would give an irrational result he retraces his steps and finds out how his equation has arisen, and how he may by altering the previous work substitute for it another which shall give a rational result. This gives rise, in general, to a subsidiary problem the solution of which ensures a rational result for the problem itself. Though, however, Diophantos has no notation for a surd, and does not admit surd results, it is scarcely true to say that he makes no use of quadratic equations which lead to such results. Thus, for example, in v. 33 he solves such an equation so far as to be able to see to what integers the solution would approximate most nearly.”

Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885)

“Almost the whole of Greek science and philosophy begins with Thales.”

Source: Achimedes (1920), Ch. II. Greek Geometry to Archimedes, p.8

“Diophantos lived in a period when the Greek mathematicians of great original power had been succeeded by a number of learned commentators, who confined their investigations within the limits already reached, without attempting to further the development of the science. To this general rule there are two most striking exceptions, in different branches of mathematics, Diophantos and Pappos. These two mathematicians, who would have been an ornament to any age, were destined by fate to live and labour at a time when their work could not check the decay of mathematical learning. There is scarcely a passage in any Greek writer where either of the two is so much as mentioned. The neglect of their works by their countrymen and contemporaries can be explained only by the fact that they were not appreciated or understood. The reason why Diophantos was the earliest of the Greek mathematicians to be forgotten is also probably the reason why he was the last to be re-discovered after the Revival of Learning. The oblivion, in fact, into which his writings and methods fell is due to the circumstance that they were not understood. That being so, we are able to understand why there is so much obscurity concerning his personality and the time at which he lived. Indeed, when we consider how little he was understood, and in consequence how little esteemed, we can only congratulate ourselves that so much of his work has survived to the present day.”

Historical Introduction, p.17
Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885)

“The discovery of Hippocrates amounted to the discovery of the fact that from the relation
(1)\frac{a}{x} = \frac{x}{y} = \frac{y}{b}it follows that(\frac{a}{x})^3 = [\frac{a}{x} \cdot \frac{x}{y} \cdot \frac{y}{b} =] \frac{a}{b}and if a = 2b, [then (\frac{a}{x})^3 = 2, and]a^3 = 2x^3.The equations (1) are equivalent [by reducing to common denominators or cross multiplication] to the three equations
(2)x^2 = ay, y^2 = bx, xy = ab[or equivalently…y = \frac{x^2}{a}, x = \frac{y^2}{b}, y = \frac{ab}{x} ]Doubling the Cube
the 2 solutions of Menaechmusand the solutions of Menaechmus described by Eutocius amount to the determination of a point as the intersection of the curves represented in a rectangular system of Cartesian coordinates by any two of the equations (2).
Let AO, BO be straight lines placed so as to form a right angle at O, and of length a, b respectively. Produce BO to x and AO to y.
The first solution now consists in drawing a parabola, with vertex O and axis Ox, such that its parameter is equal to BO or b, and a hyperbola with Ox, Oy as asymptotes such that the rectangle under the distances of any point on the curve from Ox, Oy respectively is equal to the rectangle under AO, BO i. e. to ab. If P be the point of intersection of the parabola and hyperbola, and PN, PM be drawn perpendicular to Ox, Oy, i. e. if PN, PM be denoted by y, x, the coordinates of the point P, we shall have

\begin{cases}y^2 = b. ON = b. PM = bx\\ and\\ xy = PM. PN = ab\end{cases}whence\frac{a}{x} = \frac{x}{y} = \frac{y}{b}.
In the second solution of Menaechmus we are to draw the parabola described in the first solution and also the parabola whose vertex is O, axis Oy and parameter equal to a.”

The point P where the two parabolas intersect is given by<center><math>\begin{cases}y^2 = bx\\x^2 = ay\end{cases}</math></center>whence, as before,<center><math>\frac{a}{x} = \frac{x}{y} = \frac{y}{b}.</math></center>
Apollonius of Perga (1896)

“The Pythagoreans discovered the existence of incommensurable lines, or of irrationals.”

This was, doubtless, first discovered with reference to the diagonal of a square which is incommensurable with the side, being in the ratio to it of &radic;2 to 1. The Pythagorean proof of this particular case survives in Aristotle and in a proposition interpolated in Euclid's Book X.; it is by a reductio ad absurdum proving that, if the diagonal is commensurable with the side, the same number must be both odd and even. This discovery of the incommensurable... showed that the theory of proportion invented by Pythagoras was not of universal application and therefore that propositions proved by means of it were not really established. ...The fatal flaw thus revealed in the body of geometry was not removed till Eudoxus discovered the great theory of proportion (expounded in Euclid's Book V.), which is applicable to incommensurable as well as to commensurable magnitudes.
Achimedes (1920)

Similar authors

Rosa Parks photo
Rosa Parks 22
African-American civil rights activist
John Maynard Keynes photo
John Maynard Keynes 122
British economist
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. 658
American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci…
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Mahatma Gandhi 238
pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul…
Edith Stein photo
Edith Stein 34
Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 78
British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy …
A.A. Milne photo
A.A. Milne 169
British author
Friedrich Hayek photo
Friedrich Hayek 79
Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economic…
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke 207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u…
Richard Dawkins photo
Richard Dawkins 322
English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author