From ancient times onwards, the Greek civilization’s role and contribution in the history and development of mathematics have played such a significant role that to this day, many Greek mathematicians are given due consideration for their innovations and influence on mathematics. The Greeks went ahead of Egyptians in understanding mathematical properties better. The placing of importance in Mathematical rigors has always yielded fruits for this civilization. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that Greeks were obsessed with mathematical austerity. They did not believe in rounding up; instead, they wanted pure exactness. The attribute made the civilization a great contributor to mathematics.
Here are some selected Greek mathematicians and the work they have gifted the world.
- Pythagoras (570 BC to 495 BC): was from the island of Samos and a start Greek philosopher. He was the founder of Pythagoreanism and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, Western philosophy. Pythagoras’s life was clouded by legend, but this is what can be considered as fact, he founded a school in which students took on oath to secrecy and have to live a life of an ascetic. It is believed that he devised the doctrine of “musica universalis”, that states the planets move according to mathematical equations and thus resonate to produce an inaudible symphony of music. Pythagoras was credited with many mathematical and scientific discoveries, including the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagorean tuning, the five regular solids, the Theory of Proportions, the sphericity of the Earth, and the identity of the morning and evening stars as the planet Venus. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher or a lover of wisdom.
2. Aristotle ( 384 BC to 322 BC): Aristotle one of the greatest Greek philosopher was rightly called the Father of Western philosophy along with Plato in Ancient Greece He contributed in many subjects – including physics, zoology, metaphysics, biology, poetry, theatre, music, logic, ethics, rhetoric, linguistics, economics psychology, politics, and government. He single-handedly gifted the Western civilization its philosophical lexicon, along with logical thinking. Very little is known about his life other than he was born in the city of Stagira in Northern Greece studied in Plato’s academy and taught Alexander the Great. His views on Mathematics continued to shape the medieval world and continued until the early middle ages. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West, and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and his influence continued until the 19th century.
3. Euclid ( 300 BC to 220 BC): Also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the “father of geometry “or “founder of geometry”. He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I. His book Elements is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics. It is the leading textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the Elements, Euclid deduced the theorems of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory, and mathematical rigor. The English name Euclid is the anglicized version of the Greek name Εὐκλείδης, which means “renowned, glorious” which he was.
4. Archimedes (287 BC to 212 BC): Another renowned Greek mathematician who wore many hats such as physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Again, not much detail is known of his early life, but he was considered as one of the foremost scientists in ancient times and greatest mathematician of antiquity and of all time. Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and studied it by applying concepts of infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to derive and prove a range of geometrical theorems, including the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, and the area under a parabola. His other mathematical achievements include deriving an accurate approximation of pi, outlining the spiral bearing his name, and creating a system using exponentiation for expressing huge numbers. He applied mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and statics, including an explanation of the principle of the lever. Designing defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion is a legend which many of us would have heard.
5. Ptolemy ( 100 AD to 170 AD): Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria city in the Roman province of Egypt was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and astrologer. This Greek philosopher developed the Babylonian observations and Babylonian lunar theory. Ptolemy wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. His debut astronomical treatise was known as the Almagest. It was initially entitled to the Mathematical Treatise and then known as the Great Treatise. The second treatise was Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
6. Isidore of Miletus (442 AD – 537 AD): Isadore was one of the two great architects from the Byzantine Greek Empire. He was commissioned to design the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, in which he showed his excellent mathematic acumen. He also attributed to Euclid’s Elements. Isidore of Miletus did not receive any formal education in Architecture. Nevertheless, he used mathematics to organize the logistics, coordinating the architectural drawings, managing thousands of laborers, and managing loads of rare raw materials from around the Roman Empire to construct the Hagia Sophia.
7. Anthemius (474 AD to 533 AD): Anthemius was one of the five sons of Stephanus of Tralles, who was a physician by profession. Legends say that Anthemius used to annoy his neighbors in unique ways. He created a miniature earthquake by sending steam through leather tubes he had fixed among the beams and flooring and by simulating thunder, lightning, and flashing excruciating light from the hollowed mirror. Anthemius was a competent mathematician. In his treatise “On Burning Glasses”, he mentions how to construct surfaces to reflect light to a single point. He also described the string construction of the ellipse and its properties. His work also includes the first practical use of the directrix: having given the focus and a double ordinate, he used the center and directrix to obtain any number of points on a parabola. This work was later known to Arab mathematicians such as Alhazen.
8. C. Caratheodory (1873 – 1950): Born on the 13th of September this Greek mathematician throughout his career made significant contributions to the theory of functions, calculus and variations, and measure theory. In 1909 Constantin established through a geometrical approach the axiomatic formulation of Thermodynamics.
9. Tom M. Apostol (1923-2016): Apostol was born in Utah, and his parents were Greek immigrants. His original name Apostolopoulos was condensed to Mike Apostol on his accepting US citizenship, thereby inheriting the Americanized surname. In the year, 1944 Apostol received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering, a Master’s degree in mathematics, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. As a faculty member at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech he authored several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks. Apostol was the director of Project MATHEMATICS. It produced videos that explored essential topics in high school mathematics. He propagated the visual calculus developed by Mamikon Mnatsakanian and also authored several papers, many of which appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly. Apostol also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, The Mechanical Universe.
10. Stathis Zachos (1947- Present): Brother of famous theoretical physicist Cosmas Zachos, Stathis Zachos received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Mathematics and Computer Science in the year 1978. He was a professor in Computer Science at UCSB, CUNY, and NTUA and Adjunct professor at ETHZ. He worked as a researcher at MIT. Stathis published his research papers in areas of Computer Science. Some of his most prominent work being on Randomised Complexity Classes, Arthur–Merlin Games, and Interactive Proof Systems. It was very influential in proving essential theorems and is usually mentioned in leading textbooks of computational complexity.
There is an old saying that if something is not God made then it is undoubtedly Greek made. It is particularly true for mathematics, and the numerous Greek mathematicians surely make this point clear.
