Ancient Greek geometry in the context of "Straightedge and compass construction"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about Ancient Greek geometry in the context of "Straightedge and compass construction"




⭐ Core Definition: Ancient Greek geometry

Geometry (from the Ancient Greek: γεωμετρία; geo- "earth", -metron "measurement") arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers (arithmetic).

Classic geometry was focused in compass and straightedge constructions. Geometry was revolutionized by Euclid, who introduced mathematical rigor and the axiomatic method still in use today. His book, The Elements is widely considered the most influential textbook of all time, and was known to all educated people in the West until the middle of the 20th century.

↓ Menu

In this Dossier

Ancient Greek geometry in the context of Ammonius Hermiae

Ammonius Hermiae (/əˈmniəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀμμώνιος ὁ Ἑρμείου, romanizedAmmōnios ho Hermeiou, lit.'Ammonius, son of Hermias'; c. 440 – between 517 and 526) was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.

According to Olympiodorus of Thebes's Commentaries on Plato's Gorgias and Phaedo texts, Ammonius gave lectures on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry of Tyre, and wrote commentaries on Aristotelian works and three lost commentaries on Platonic texts. He is also the author of a text on the astrolabe published in the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, and lectured on astronomy and geometry. Ammonius taught numerous Neoplatonists, including Damascius, Olympiodorus of Thebes, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Asclepius of Tralles. Also among his pupils were the physician Gessius of Petra and the ecclesiastical historian Zacharias Rhetor, who became the bishop of Mytilene.

↑ Return to Menu

Ancient Greek geometry in the context of Ostomachion

In ancient Greek geometry, the Ostomachion, also known as loculus Archimedius (from Latin 'Archimedes' box') or syntomachion, is a mathematical treatise attributed to Archimedes. This work has survived fragmentarily in an Arabic version and a copy, the Archimedes Palimpsest, of the original ancient Greek text made in Byzantine times.

The word Ostomachion (Ὀστομάχιον) comes from Greek ὀστέον (osteon) 'bone' and μάχη (mache) 'fight, battle, combat'. The manuscripts refer to the word as "Stomachion", an apparent corruption of the original Greek. Ausonius gives us the correct name "Ostomachion" (quod Graeci ostomachion vocavere, "which the Greeks called ostomachion").

↑ Return to Menu