By Thomas Heath
Quantity 1 of an authoritative two-volume set that covers the necessities of arithmetic and contains each landmark innovation and each very important determine. This quantity gains Euclid, Apollonius, others.
Read or Download A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume 1: From Thales to Euclid PDF
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Extra resources for A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume 1: From Thales to Euclid
Enable and as a result n2 = N. μ2. Then within the comparable approach we will be able to turn out that n is a a number of of N. permit It follows from (1) and (2) that m/n = μ/ν, the place μ < m and ν < n; for that reason m/n isn't really in its lowest phrases, that's opposite to the speculation. The objection to this conjecture as to the character of Theodorus’s facts is that it's so effortless an model of the normal facts relating to √2 that it will hardly ever be vital adequate to say as a brand new discovery. additionally it might be particularly pointless to copy the facts for each case as much as √17; for it'd be transparent, lengthy earlier than √17 used to be reached, that it's as a rule acceptable. The latter objection turns out to me to have strength. the previous objection may perhaps or won't; for i don't think definite that Plato is unavoidably attributing any very important new discovery to Theodorus. the item of the full context is to teach definition by means of mere enumeration isn't any definition; e. g. it's no definition of ἐπιστήμη to enumerate specific ἐπιστμαι (as shoemaking, carpentering, and the like); this can be to place the cart prior to the pony, the final definition of ἐπιστήμη being logically past. therefore it used to be most likely Theaetetus’s generalization of the strategy of Theodorus which galvanized Plato as being unique and demanding instead of Theodorus’s proofs themselves. (3) The 3rd speculation is that of Zeuthen. sixty two He begins with the assumptions (a) that the strategy of facts utilized by Theodorus should have been unique sufficient to name for detailed discover from Plato, and (b) that it should have been of this type of sort that the applying of it to every surd required to be set out individually consequently of the differences within the numbers moving into the proofs. Neither of those stipulations is happy by means of the speculation of a trifling variation to √3, √5 … of the normal facts with reference to √2. Zeuthen for that reason indicates one other speculation as gratifying either stipulations, particularly that Theodorus used the criterion provided via the method of discovering the best universal degree as said within the theorem of Eucl. X. 2. ‘If, whilst the lesser of 2 unequal magnitudes is constantly subtracted in flip from the higher [this contains the subtraction from any time period of the top a number of of one other that it contains], that that's left by no means measures the single ahead of it, the magnitudes could be incommensurable’; that's, if magnitudes are such that the method of discovering their G. C. M. by no means involves an finish, the 2 magnitudes are incommensurable. real, the proposition Eucl. X. 2 is dependent upon the recognized X. 1 (Given unequal magnitudes, if from the higher there be subtracted greater than the part (or the half), from the rest greater than the part (or the half), etc, there'll be left, eventually, a few value under the lesser of the unique magnitudes), that is according to the recognized postulate of Eudoxus (= Eucl. V, Def. 4), and as a result belongs to a later date. Zeuthen will get over this objection through stating that the need of X. 1 for a rigorous demonstration of X.