Showing posts with label Eratosthenes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eratosthenes. Show all posts

Monday, June 4, 2007

Papus' Treasury of Analysis and the Lost Books

According to Carl Apollonius.
Boyer's A History of Mathematics, Papus' Treasury of Analysis listed treatises by Aristaeus, Euclid, Eratosthenes,and
Conics had 487 theorems ...so the last (eigth) lost book had 105 theorems currently missing ... Cutting of a Ratio, On Means, and Porisms are all missing ... just think if we they weren't lost ... we might have already had a settlement on Mars ... maybe ... maybe not ... you never know

I am particularly intrigued by Porisms ... aren't you?