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Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Eudoxus of Cnidus: The Man Who Changed Geometry

Eudoxus, born in Cnidus, Asia Minor, was one of the most important scholars of ancient Greece. He was a great mathematician who helped in the development of geometry and the first scholar to ever connect it with other sciences such as astronomy. Nowadays, the mathematical work of Eudoxus is not particularly well-known to the general public. Unlike most famous ancient Greek mathematicians, Eudoxus did not leave something behind that could ensure posthumous fame. He left no significant theorem like Pythagoras, nor a mathematical theory like Euclid. Eudoxus main contribution to science was the theory of proportions and helped in the evolution of Pythagorean geometry, which did not contain asymmetric quantities. Eudoxus observed that in many cases, the ratio of two quantities was equal to any known fraction, which led to the discovery of irrational numbers. Without Eudoxus’ contribution to mathematics, Euclidean Geometry and other fields such as the number theory would not have been developed. Ancient Greek mathematicians had a huge appreciation for Eudoxus’ work, however over the years his fame started fading. Now, more than 2,000 years after his death, his significance was finally recognized. A website was created since 2010,  named Eudoxus, providing for the distribution of university textbooks in Greek universities. Just as his work was helpful and extremely important for the development of mathematics, in the same way the website was created in order to provide as many sources of knowledge to Greek students, helping them excel in their respective fields.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com