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  • Before 1400: The Ancient and Medieval Worlds (4)

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Article

Hero, of Alexandria  

Georgia L. Irby-Massie

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Greek polymath who worked in mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics. He is especially famous for descriptions of automata (air-, water-, and steam-powered mechanical devices) and steam-powered aeolipiles. “Hero’s engine,” deriving from Ctesibius of Alexandria’s design (290–250 bce), is the first device to transform steam into rotary motion. The aeolipile consists of a hollow sphere attached by pipes to an enclosed water-filled cauldron. When the cauldron is heated, the sphere spins on a pivot as it releases steam (Pneumatics 50).

Hero’s much disputed floruit was pinpointed by Neugebauer (1975, 846), who noted that Hero used eyewitness evidence of a lunar eclipse of 62 ce, visible from both Rome and Alexandria, to calculate the distance between those two cities (Dioptra 35). Making no use of Ptolemy of Alexandria (127–after 146 ce Hero likely predated Ptolemy Neugebauer Very little is known of Hero s life His mathematical corpus ...

Article

Hypatia  

Michael A. B. Deakin

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Alexandrian astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher, was the first woman mathematician of whose life and work we have reasonably detailed and secure knowledge. She was active as a public figure, taking a leading part in the civic affairs of Alexandria and also delivering popular lectures on philosophy: a Neoplatonist philosophy heavily influenced by mathematics. She also taught students the intricacies of technical mathematics and astronomy. Her public profile alone was probably distinguished enough to earn her a place in history, but this has been cemented by the lurid nature of her death. She died in 415, murdered by a crowd of Christian zealots who seized her, stripped her, and proceeded to dismember her and to burn her mangled corpse. Undoubtedly this further circumstance has served to keep her name alive.

Hypatia was the daughter of the mathematician Theon and taught both mathematics and philosophy in the then Greek city of Alexandria ...

Article

Pappus of Alexandria  

Michael A. B. Deakin

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

mathematician, astronomer, and geographer, was the principal figure of the “silver age” of ancient Greek mathematics. Little is known of his life; what the sources tell us is contradictory and unreliable. The little we do know reliably is gleaned rather from what survives of his writing. His principal work, at least in what has survived, is the Synagoge or Collection, and even this has not reached us in its entirety. It is described as having comprised eight books, of which the first and part of the second are missing. The only other work of his that survives in the original Greek (and that only in part) is a commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest. Beyond these are works in other languages that are thought to be translations of originals by him. An Arabic commentary on Book X of Euclid’s Elements may be a translation of a work he is ...

Article

Theon  

Michael A. B. Deakin

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician was the leading mathematician of his era and the last attested member of the famed Alexandrian Museum The mid to late fourth century of the Common Era was not a time conducive to mathematics Indeed Constantius a Roman Emperor of the day promulgated a law to the effect that no one may consult a soothsayer or a mathematician The word soothsayer is the key mathematicians were bundled together with numerologists and other such charlatans Small wonder that the great mathematical achievements of earlier researchers like Archimedes were no longer being actively pursued or extended The research agenda of Archimedes and the great works of synthesis such as Euclid s could scarcely be expected to flourish in such a climate of opinion Contemporaneous with this shift of opinion was a rising tide of militancy in Christianity which in particular saw the destruction of the Alexandrian Serapeion and ...