The Works Of Archimedes Including The Method

Spherical trigonometry was at the heart of astronomy and ocean-going navigation for two millennia. The discipline was a mainstay of mathematics education for centuries, and it was a standard subject in high schools until the 1950s. Today, however, it is rarely taught. Heavenly Mathematics traces the rich history of this forgotten art, revealing how the cultures of classical Greece, medieval Islam, and the modern West used spherical trigonometry to chart the heavens and the Earth. Glen Van Brummelen explores this exquisite branch of mathematics and its role in ancient astronomy, geography, and cartography; Islamic religious rituals; celestial navigation; polyhedra; stereographic projection; and more. He conveys the sheer beauty of spherical trigonometry, providing readers with a new appreciation for its elegent proofs and often surprising conclusions. Heavenly Mathematics is illustrated throughout with stunning historical images and informative drawings and diagrams that have been used to teach the subject in the past. This unique compendium also features easy-to-use appendixes as well as exercises at the end of each chapter that originally appeared in textbooks from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. -- Jacket.

Archimedes of Syracuse, revered as antiquity's great geometer, produced a vast collection of works in geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics which has proved to be a source of timeless fascination for modern mathematicians, physicists, science historians and logicians. Although credited with the invention of practical devices like the water-screw, catapults and grappling devices, compound pulley systems, and a model for explaining solar eclipses, Archimedes viewed these mechanical innovations merely as "diversions of geometry at play." In this complete works, including his renowned "Method," Archimedes addresses such topics as: the ratio of the areas of a cylinder and an inscribed sphere, the measurement of a circle, the properties of conoids, spheroids, and spirals, and the quadrature of the parabola. His ingenious work on spheres, cylinders and floating objects have gained Archimedes the recognition, along with Euclid and Apollonius, as one of the three great mathematicians of the ancient world. This volume reproduces the classic translation of Thomas Heath.