“It would be inconvenient to interrupt the account of Menaechmus's solution of the problem of the two mean proportionals in order to consider the way in which he may have discovered the conic sections and their fundamental properties. It seems to me much better to give the complete story of the origin and development of the geometry of the conic sections in one place, and this has been done in the chapter on conic sections associated with the name of Apollonius of Perga. Similarly a chapter has been devoted to algebra (in connexion with Diophantus) and another to trigonometry”

under Hipparchus, Menelaus and Ptolemy
A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1. From Thales to Euclid

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It would be inconvenient to interrupt the account of Menaechmus's solution of the problem of the two mean proportionals…" by Thomas Little Heath?
Thomas Little Heath photo
Thomas Little Heath 46
British civil servant and academic 1861–1940

Related quotes

Thomas Little Heath photo
Arthur Koestler photo

“We find in the history of ideas mutations which do not seem to correspond to any obvious need, and at first sight appear as mere playful whimsies — such as Apollonius' work on conic sections, or the non-Euclidean geometries, whose practical value became apparent only later.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

as quoted by Michael Grossman in the The First Nonlinear System of Differential and Integral Calculus (1979).
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

Isaac Newton photo

“The Ellipse is the most simple of the Conic Sections, most known, and nearest of Kin to a Circle, and easiest describ'd by the Hand in plano.”

Though many prefer the Parabola before it, for the Simplicity of the Æquation by which it is express'd. But by this Reason the Parabola ought to be preferr'd before the Circle it self, which it never is. Therefore the reasoning from the Simplicity of the Æquation will not hold. The modern Geometers are too fond of the Speculation of Æquations.
Arithmetica Universalis (1707)

Thomas Little Heath photo
David Eugene Smith photo

“Another advantage is the existence of an exercise section at the end of each chapter which enables the reader to verify understanding and, when needed, to go back to the right section and reread desired fragments.”

Book Reviews, REVIEWER: JAKUB PALIDER, NANOSCALE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS STEPHEN F. BUSH, ARTECH HOUSE, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-1-60807-003-9, HARDCOVER, 308 PAGES, IEEE Communications Magazine, August 2011.

Augustus De Morgan photo
Isaac Newton photo

Related topics