Greek impact on Western civilization

Ancient Greece has been one of the greatest civilizations to ever flourish due to the huge impact it had on Western civilization.

The Classical Age of Greece (8th century BC – 146 BC) was characterized by colonization and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were the first two most important epics in world literature.

During the Golden Age of Greece in the 5th century BC. C., the greatest artistic, literary, architectural, scientific, philosophical and sports achievements were produced.

The historians Herodotus and Thucydides, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and the philosophers Plato and Socrates all lived and worked in 5th century BC Athens. c.

Today, we can gaze at the architectural wonders of ancient Greece and gain insight into the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers.

The Hellenistic era (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 about 350 B.C. 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, Dinocrates of Rhodes.

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 Ptolemaic Greek 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 of Alexander the Great.

The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest libraries in the ancient world and its Museum had scholars such as Euclid (Greek mathematician and “Father of Geometry”) and Eratosthenes (Greek mathematician, geographer and chief librarian) working there.

Importance of Mathematics

There are two periods of Greek mathematics:

1. The Classic 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 deals with the logic of ratio, quantity, arrangement, sequence, and pretty much 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 seascape, 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 major advances in mathematics, astronomy, and music theory.

Many of the most prominent Greek thinkers of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries are labeled Pythagoreans, such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle.

Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347-BC) 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 learning in the Western world.

Parmenides of Elea (late 6th or early 5th century BC) was a Presocratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia (“Greater Greece” meaning Greek-populated areas in southern Italy) who founded metaphysics (branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality).

Euclid of Alexandria (about 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 still used in mathematics today, consisting of definition, axiom, theorem, and proof.

His book, Elements, served as the main textbook for the teaching of mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the early 20th century.

Archimedes of Syracuse (287 – 212-BC)

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 (its 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 Archimedean screw pump device (machine used to transfer water from a low-lying body of water to irrigation ditches).

Thales of Miletus (624-620 – 548-545-BC)

Miletus was an ancient Greek city in Ionia, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).

Thales was a Presocratic philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, recognized as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity.

He is best known for his work calculating the heights of pyramids and the distance of ships from shore using geometry.

Aristotle (384 – 322-BC)

Aristotle was born in Stagira, an ancient Greek city near the east coast of the Chalkidice peninsula of Central Macedonia.

Aristotle was a student of Plato and made contributions to Platonism.

He was a scholar (knowledge covers 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 Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition.

Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great and established a library that helped in the production of hundreds of books.

From his teachings, Western civilization inherited its intellectual lexicon on almost all forms of knowledge.

Diophantus of Alexandria (about 200 – 214-AD – 284 and 298-AD)

Greek mathematician, known as the father of algebra and the compilation of a series of books called Arithmetic dealing 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 of the Library of Alexandria.

His work involved the study of geography and introduced some of the terminology still in use 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 of 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 geometer (mathematician who specializes in the study of geometry) and the inventor of many machines, including a steam turbine.

Ptolemy of Alexandria (100 – 170-AD)

Ptolemy was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and geographer who wrote several scientific investigations.

The Great Treatise is one of his renowned works now known as the Almagest on astronomy.

His world map, 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, the daughter of a mathematician, was the first woman known to have taught mathematics and to have made valuable contributions to the field of mathematics.

She was also a philosopher who taught as the director of 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.

Antiphon of Rhamnus (480 – 411-BC)

Rhamnus, an ancient Greek city in Attica, a historical region of Athens, is situated on the coast, overlooking the Euboean Strait.

Antiphon was the first of the ten Attic orators and an important figure in fifth-century Athenian political and intellectual life.

He was the first to give an upper and lower bound on the values ​​of Pi by inscribing and then circumscribing a polygon around a circle and finally proceeding to compute the areas of the polygons. The method was applied to squaring the circle.