Ancient Greek Mathematics

The readings here are divided into three parts corresponding to the three periods we have identified, the early, the classical and the helenistic periods. There are many pages to read and the problems will be balanced among them.

• The Early Period
  

1. The Origins of Mathematics; the schools (350KB)
2. Thales, by Dmitri Panchenko
3. Thales, his Philosophy and Mathmatics (220KB)
4. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans (518KB)
5. Anaxagorus and the Heroic Age (119KB)
6. Greek Enumeration and Arithmetic (100KB)

• The Classical Period

7. Eudoxus (130KB)
8. Euclid (430KB)

• The Helenistic Period

9. Archimedes (300KB)
10. Apollonius and other geometers (215KB)
11. Ancient Algebra (35KB)
12. Diophantus (175KB)
13. Pappus (175KB)

    • Background readings from the Internet

14. How do we know about Greek mathematics?
15. How do we know about Greek mathematicians?
16. The timeline of Greek mathematicians
17. Translations of Euclid's Elements.
18. Trisectrix animation
19. Epicycle animation.

Some files are long and make take a few minutes to download. To read and print them you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Each reading, in Acrobat (pdf) format, is a short paper on the aspect in question. Upon completing a reading, try to answer the questions that pertain to it.