Greek+Math

Greek Mathematics

From the 7th century BCE to the 4th century AD, some people in the cities off the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were coming up with mathematical proofs and theories. Some of those theories and proofs have lasted all the way to now, like those by Thales, Pythagoras and Euclid.

Thales is now known for probably being the first matematician and he is also known for the Theorem of Thales. He stated that if thee points are on a circle and two of them, if connected, make a diameter, then the angle of the thrid point connected to the first and second point is 90 degrees.



Pythagoras might be known the best and this is because of the Pythagorean Theorem. He said that for any right triangle, with c being the hypotenuse, a^2+b^2=c^2. Pythagoras was interesting because he established an order called the Pythagoreans. Off all the discoveries this order discovered, all of the credit went to only Pythagoras himself. This order could be seen as a cult following today. He coined the term, mathematics, and it translates to "subject of instruction" from ancient Greek.



Eculid is known as the Father of Geometry and "Euclidean Geometry" was named after him. He workd on factorization, which leads to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic on the uniqueness of prime factorization, and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. In general, he created the geomety that everyone knows today.

All of these mathematicians came from the Hellenistic time period, and thier work has held true through time and is used today.