Greek impact on Western civilization
Ancient Greece has been one of the greatest civilizations to ever flourish due to the enormous impact it had on Western civilization.
The classical period of Greece (8th century BC – 146 BC) was characterized by colonization and the Iliad and Homer’s Odyssey were the first two great epics of world literature.
During the Golden Age of Greece in the 5th century BC, the greatest artistic, literary, architectural, scientific, philosophical and sporting achievements took place.
Historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, Hippocrates, the father of medicine and philosophers, Plato and Socrates, lived and worked in 5th century BC Athens. C.
Today, we can contemplate the architectural wonders of ancient Greece and learn about the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers.
The Hellenistic Age (4th to 1st centuries BC) was Alexander the Great’s legacy to the world when Greek culture dominated the Mediterranean and the Middle East and Greek became the international language.
Hellenistic Alexandria
From approximately 350 a. C., the center of mathematics moved from Athens to Hellenistic Alexandria, a port city in northern Egypt, founded in 331 BC. C. by Alexander the Great and built by its main architect, Dinócrates de Rodas.
The island of Rhodes is famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, a 33-meter tall statue of the Greek sun god Helios that straddled the city’s harbor and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Greek and Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt (305-30 BC) during the Hellenistic period.
Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 – 30 BC), was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general under Alexander the Great.
The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest libraries in the ancient world and its museum had such scholars as Euclid (a Greek mathematician and “father of geometry”) and Eratosthenes (a Greek mathematician, geographer, and chief librarian) who worked there.
Importance of Mathematics
There are two periods of Greek mathematics:
1. The classical period (600-BC to 300-BC)
two. The Alexandrian or Hellenistic period (300-BC to 300-AD)
The word “mathematics” is derived from the ancient Greek word “mathema” which means “knowledge or learning” and is the study of numbers, shapes and patterns.
It’s about the logic of reason, quantity, arrangement, sequence, and just about everything we do today.
Famous Greek mathematicians and their contributions
Pythagoras of Samos (570 BC – 495 BC)
Pythagoras of Samos is the father of the famous “Pythagorean theorem”, a mathematical formula that states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Samos was famous in ancient times for its navy, wine, and sanctuary of Hera, a goddess from ancient Greek mythology.
Pythagoras taught that the Earth was a sphere at the center of the universe and that the paths of the planets were circular.
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoras founded Pythagoreanism, which made important developments in mathematics, astronomy, and music theory.
Many of the leading Greek thinkers of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries are called Pythagoreans such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle.
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347-AC) was an Athenian philosopher during the classical period in ancient Greece who founded the Platonic school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher education in the Western world.
Parmenides of Elea (late 6th or early 5th century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia (“Greater Greece”, meaning Greek-populated areas in southern Italy) who founded the metaphysics (branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality).
Euclid of Alexandria (around 300-270-BC)
Euclid is the father of geometry (Euclidean geometry) who was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323-283 BC).
He made revolutionary contributions to geometry and introduced the axiomatic method that is still used in mathematics today, consisting of definition, axiom, theorem, and proof.
His book, Elements, served as the primary textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the early 1900s.
Archimedes of Syracuse (287 – 212-AC)
Archimedes is the father of mathematics and is considered the greatest mathematician of antiquity.
He lived in the Greek city of Syracuse, Sicily, his birthplace.
His father, Phidias, was a mathematician and astronomer.
Archimedes revolutionized geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus (his applications include calculations involving area, volume, arc length, center of mass, work, and pressure).
He is also known for the invention of compound pulleys and the Archimidean screw pump device (machine used to transfer water from a low body of water to irrigation ditches).
Thales of Miletus (624-620 – 548-545-BC)
Miletus was an ancient Greek city in Ionia, Asia Minor (now modern Turkey).
Thales was a pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, recognized as one of the legendary Seven Sages, or Sophoi, of ancient times.
He is best known for his work in calculating the height of pyramids and the distance from ships to shore using geometry.
Aristotle (384 – 322-BC)
Aristotle was born in Stagira, an ancient Greek city near the eastern coast of the Chalkidice peninsula of Central Macedonia.
Aristotle was a student of Plato and made contributions to Platonism.
He was a scholar (knowledge encompasses many subjects) during the classical period of ancient Greece, which included mathematics, geology, physics, metaphysics, biology, medicine, and psychology.
He was the founder of the Lyceum, the school of Peripatetic philosophy and the Aristotelian tradition.
Aristotle taught Alexander the Great and established a library that assisted in the production of hundreds of books.
From his teachings, Western civilization inherited his intellectual lexicon on almost all forms of knowledge.
Diophantus of Alexandria (around 200-214-AD-284 and 298-AD)
Greek mathematician, known as the father of algebra and compiling a series of books called Arithmetica that deal with solving algebraic equations.
He was the first Greek mathematician to recognize fractions as numbers.
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194-BC)
Cyrene was an ancient Greek city in Libya and was founded in 631-BC.
Eratosthenes was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist who became the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria.
His work involved the study of geography and introduced some of the terminology that is still used today.
Eratosthenes correctly calculated the circumference of the Earth and the tilt of the Earth’s axis.
Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120-BC)
Nicaea was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).
Hipparchus was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician who made many mathematical contributions.
He was the founder of trigonometry and the first mathematical trigonometric table.
Hipparchus was also the first to develop a reliable method for predicting solar eclipses.
Heron of Alexandria (10 – 70-AD)
Heron is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and is remembered for Heron’s formula, a way of calculating the area of a triangle using only the lengths of its sides.
He was also an important geometrist (a mathematician who specializes in the study of geometry) and who invented many machines, including a steam turbine.
Ptolemy of Alexandria (100-170-AD)
Ptolemy was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and geographer who wrote various scientific investigations.
The Great Treatise is one of his renowned works that is now known as the Almagest on Astronomy.
His map of the world, published as part of his treatise Geography in the second century, was the first to use longitudinal and latitudinal lines.
Hypatia of Alexandria (355 – 415-BC)
Hypatia, daughter of a mathematician, was the first known woman to teach mathematics and made valuable contributions in the field of mathematics.
She was also a philosopher who taught as a director in a school, the knowledge of Plato and Aristotle.
Hypatia was the first woman to pursue her dreams and became an inspiration to many young women.
Rhamnus Antiphon (480 – 411-AC)
Rhamnus, an ancient Greek city in Attica, a historical region of Athens, is situated on the coast, overlooking the Strait of Euboea.
Antiphon was the first of the ten Attic orators and an important figure in 5th century Athenian political and intellectual life.
He was the first to give an upper and lower bound for the values of Pi by inscribing and then circumscribing a polygon around a circle and finally proceeding to calculate the areas of the polygons. The method was applied to square the circle.