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As we know, even Archimedes did soon some experimental calculations.

My question were, who calculated first time the exact formulas ($V=\frac{4\pi}{3}r^3$, $A=4\pi r^2$)?

As I know, these formulas require the higher understanding of differential calculus, thus I think it happened after Newton and Leibnitz. But who did them?

Conifold
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peterh
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  • We have some reason to believe that the Greeks used sand to demonstrate geometric proofs. I would be surprised if the ancient Greeks and Egyptians didn't use sand to "stumble upon" the formulae and later fill in the proofs to match the prediction by sand. What do I mean? Make a spherical container. Make a cylindrical container that would very closely circumscribe the spherical one. Fill the sphere up with sand. Dump the sand into the cylindrical container. Shake it up. Eye ball it and see it fills about 2/3 of it up. Prove it. –  Jun 17 '18 at 08:18
  • @Robert Afaik the Greeks were very axiomatical in their ideas, they hadn't ever accept an experimental measurement without an axiomatical proof. This was being done by the Agyptians and the Babylonians. And here came their next major problem, that not knowing irrationals they could not discover $\pi$. Even their ideas about rational numbers was the proportion of natural numbers. For example, from the size and the diagonal of the square they held, they are not "co-measurable", i.e. they knew that $\sqrt 2$ is not rational but they has seen it that it is not a number. – peterh Jun 17 '18 at 13:45
  • I'm not saying they would have stopped short of a proof and accepted merely just experimental evidence. But you can "get the formula for $\pi$" from experimental evidence, in the sense that you can get the relevant theorems about proportions that would nowadays be expressed with $\pi$. Take three different cut-out circles covered in a thin layer of sand and then "brush" that sand into three different squares equally thin, and you could eyeball that the proportion of areas between any two of those squares is the same. –  Jun 17 '18 at 16:00

2 Answers2

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This is one of those questions that is much trickier than it appears, many different people contributed to the formulas as we write them today. The short answer, that doesn't really do justice to history, is that only Euler presented volume formulas in this form in his textbooks after 1737.

The principal step was no doubt made by Archimedes in On Sphere and Cylinder, where he proved rigorously that $V_S:V_C=2:3$, where $V_S$ is the volume of a sphere and $V_C$ is the volume of the circumscribed cylinder (he also gave proportion for the surface area). "Obviously", $V_C=\pi r^2\times2r$, so we get the modern formula, right? Although this is a popular way of projecting modern concepts onto history it sells short the ingenuity of ancient Greeks and the difficulties they managed to overcome, not to mention the work of countless others who brought about our mathematical paradise. Here is one problem: how does one assign a number to a volume, or even to a length for that matter? Today we use real numbers and integration theory, but ancient Greeks had none of that. Their ingenious solution was to make do without both. Geometric magnitudes (volumes, areas, lengths) weren't assigned numbers at all, they were related to other like magnitudes as ratios. These ratios weren't numbers, they could be compared but not added, and only occasionally they could be expressed as ratios of whole numbers, the only numbers proper. This is why Archimedes expressed the "formula" the way he did.

But to get to our modern formula even in the ratio form like $V_S:r^3=4\pi:3$ there is another problem standing in the way. This proportion relates the volume of the sphere not to a cylinder, but to the cube on its radius. Problem is, $4\pi:3$ is not a ratio of whole numbers, unlike $2:3$. Of course, Archimedes didn't know that for sure, but Pythagoreans already got into hot water by assuming it for the side and the diagonal of a square, and later proving otherwise. So Archimedes, like geometers before and after him, did not write it that way, and they did not write $A=\pi r^2$ or $A:r^2=\pi$ for the area of a circle either. Not in equations and not in words. Yet again, Greeks rose to the occasion despite the absence of our modern machinery. The theory of proportion, an ingenious invention of Eudoxus of Cnidus presented in Book V of Euclid's Elements, allowed them to make sense of estimates like $s:t<A:r^2<p:q$ with whole numbers $p,q,s,t$. Archimedes and many of his successors did prove many such estimates without invoking mysterious entities, which remained undefined for almost two millenia hence, and without the modern idea that unbeknownst to them those ratios were "approximating" $\pi$.

If this last step seems trivial to us today let me point out that in 17th century Cavalieri and Roberval were still presenting their volumes and areas as ratios to other simpler volumes and areas, and recall the history of zero, which was not understood or used as a number for centuries after Babylonians and Alexandrian astronomers were using a symbol for it as a placeholder. With $\pi$ there wasn't even a symbol. Only at the end of middle ages some Arabs and Europeans started thinking of irrationals as some kind of numbers, while giving them telling nicknames, like "deafmute numbers". And this was for irrationals like $1+\sqrt{5}$ or $\sqrt[3]{2}$ given by algebraic formulas.

It appears that the first person to contemplate that $\pi$ and $e$ were also "some kind of numbers" in print was James Gregory in The True Squaring of the Circle and of the Hyperbola published in 1667. He was also the first to suggest a possibility that quadrature of the circle was unsolvable with straightedge and compass, although his argument for it was flawed. Even then it took time for the idea to percolate until William Jones in 1706 was bold enough to assign a symbol to the new "number", our modern $\pi$, while still saying "the exact proportion between the diameter and the circumference can never be expressed in numbers". Integration theory was sufficiently developed by then to be comfortable with volumes and areas as numbers as well, so Jones could dispose with the ratios and write $A=\pi r^2$. And when Euler adopted the symbol 30 years later, and made it famous, he could finally write $V_S=\frac43\pi r^3$.

Conifold
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    This is one of the best answers that I've yet seen on hsm.SE. Thank you! – dotancohen Jan 27 '15 at 13:36
  • Your link to Andy Engelward's page "history of zero" is broken. – KCd Dec 27 '23 at 20:41
  • @KCd He had a pdf of the MacTutor's page, I relinked directly to them. – Conifold Dec 28 '23 at 05:20
  • If I understand you correctly, one of your main points is that $\pi$ is irrational and hence could not have been considered a number by the greeks, so they could not have written or proved the equation $V=\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3$. But if Archimedes considered the proportion $V_S : V_C$ and treated it as a mathematical object and Pythagoras considered "side : diagonal of square", did they not also consider "circumference : diameter of circle" as an object of study (which could be taken as a definition of $\pi$ from modern perspective)? – Michael Bächtold Dec 28 '23 at 21:00
  • And could they then not (in principle) have stated and proved something like $V_S:V_{cu} = C : 6D$ where $V_{cu}$ is the volume of a circumscribed cube and $C$ is the circumference while $D$ the diameter of a circle? This only involves proportions of geometric objects and natural numbers, and is easily seen to be equivalent to the equation $V=\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3$. – Michael Bächtold Dec 28 '23 at 21:01
  • In "$ r:s<A:r^2<p:q$", the first $r$ is a constant integer, whereas the second $r$ means the radius - is that correct? – SRobertJames Feb 26 '24 at 14:39
  • @SRobertJames Yes, bad choice of notation, I changed it. – Conifold Feb 26 '24 at 21:05
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Archimedes calculated the exact formulas (in the way that the ancient Greeks gave formulas) in his book On the Sphere and Cylinder. This was not "experimental": He gave a full geometric proof, rigorous for its time period.

He considered this his greatest work. He asked that a diagram representing his proof be inscribed on his tomb. This was apparently done as at least one visitor to later Syracuse reported seeing the diagram.

Some people think that Archimedes discovered calculus and found the formulas in that way, but hid his discovery. Newton did much the same thing later, using Calculus to discover much about gravity but using geometric proofs when he wrote about gravity. Newton finally revealed his own work in Calculus when forced by Leibniz. Newton realized that Calculus would be controversial. Perhaps Archimedes did as well.

Rory Daulton
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  • The first two paragraphs of this answer are correct (apart from the fact that Syracuse is not in Greece but in Italy). The third paragraph is empty speculation. – fdb Jan 24 '15 at 16:57
  • @fdb, be more specific about which parts of the third paragraph you think are empty speculation. That Newton used calculus to work out ideas in his Principia that he explained in that book only using geometry is widely documented. That part of the paragraph does not look like empty speculation. – KCd Jan 24 '15 at 17:03
  • I am talking about Archimedes, of course. – fdb Jan 24 '15 at 17:04
  • @fdb: Thanks for the correction about Syracuse: I have edited my answer. You are right that much of my third paragraph is speculation. I thought I indicated that by writing "some people think" and "perhaps." I thought this speculation was relevant to the OP writing " I think it happened after Newton and Leibnitz." I did not originate this speculation. – Rory Daulton Jan 24 '15 at 18:35
  • Ancient Greeks did not give area or volume formulas for a reason, there was no concept of a real number, so relating magnitudes to numbers made no sense in general. They could only be related to other like magnitudes. Archimedes did not find any formulas, he proved that the volume of a sphere was to the volume of the circumscribed cylinder as 2:3. One had to conceive of $\pi$ as a number to convert this into formulas, which happened much later. – Conifold Jan 24 '15 at 22:02
  • @Conifold: The Greeks' way of stating mathematical facts differed from ours in several ways. In addition to talking about ratios rather than real numbers, they used words instead of equations and variables (until Diophantus, at least). The exact definition of "formula" did not seem to be the point of the OP. Archimedes had the ideas basically equivalent to our formulas. If the OP wants the originator of the formulas as we state them now, he could say so. – Rory Daulton Jan 25 '15 at 00:34
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    Archimedes did NOT have "the ideas basically equivalent to our formulas" because that basically requires treating $\pi$ as a number. The difference is far beyond using words for equations. And people who think that "Archimedes discovered calculus" are conspiracy theorists. We have Archimedes's letter to Eratothenes, recently rediscovered in a palimpsest but known since 1897, where he describes exactly how he discovered his "formulas" http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/Archimedes.shtml. It was based on a mechanical analogy and "indivisibles". – Conifold Jan 25 '15 at 01:43
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    I did not like the expression "for its time period". Are Archimedes arguments not rigorous for our time period? – Alexandre Eremenko Jan 25 '15 at 02:17
  • @Alexandre Eremenko Archimedes proved what he was proving rigorously modulo "method of exhaustion" lemma, Elements X.1, which of course doesn't follow from Euclid's postulates. But if we imagine, like this answer, that Archimedes "really" was proving our modern formulas, then of course it all becomes non-rigorous because he'd then need real numbers and measure theory to even state the result. – Conifold Jan 25 '15 at 02:44
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    @Conifold: I disagree. One does not need "measure theory" to define and find the volume of the ball. And the "real numbers" were perfectly dealt with by Archimedes. When I was a teenager, they taught this in high school, completely rigorously, without any "measure theory" and following Archimedes. – Alexandre Eremenko Jan 25 '15 at 14:00
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    Although I accepted the answer, my main problem with this whole Archimedes thing, that he was an ancient greek. And the ancient greeks didn't know the irrational numbers as $\pi$ (even for the non-integers they used ratios of integers, actually in their mind exclusively integer numbers existed). I think, maybe Archimedes was able to find some interesting relations (i.e. 2:3) between the sphere and the cylinder, maybe could give an algorithm to the volume and surface of a sphere, but I don't think he had used the $pi$ in any of his formulas. – peterh Jan 26 '15 at 02:49
  • @Alexandre Eremenko Lucky you :) But the way Archimedes did it was exactly to avoid questions like "what is volume?" and "what is $\pi$?" that overly inquisitive kids might ask in such a class. – Conifold Jan 26 '15 at 21:16
  • @Conifold: I maintain that Archimedes perfectly understood what is volume (of a simple thing like a ball) and what is $\pi$. In fact, Euclid understood this. Their arguments are completely rigorous by all standards. Certainly more rigorous than in modern calculus books. The same level of rigor as in all mainstream modern mathematics, except possible special logic literature. – Alexandre Eremenko Jan 26 '15 at 21:48
  • @Alexandre Eremenko Try finding definition of volume or $\pi$ in any of his works. Or anybody's in ancient Greece. The rigor of arguments isn't the issue, the content of statements is. – Conifold Jan 27 '15 at 00:08
  • @Conifold: This all sounds like a lot of hair-splitting to me. Your excellent answer notwithstanding, I think we can all agree that Archimedes' findings would have enabled him to compute volume and surface area of a sphere to any desired accuracy, just like he could calculate the ratio between diameter and circumference of a circle to any accuracy he would have wanted. And this one could perfectly well sum up as 'Archimedes knew about the formulas for the volume and area of a sphere', since, to us, the formulas are nothing more or less than a recipe for computing volume etc. of a sphere. – R.P. May 02 '17 at 00:47
  • @Conifold: Claiming that Archimedes did not discover the equivalent of the volume formula for a sphere is just a wilful refusal to engage with the question of what should count for an equivalent of such a formula in Ancient Greek mathematics. One sees this all the time with modern historiographers of science. They would sooner defend the notion that the notion of an equivalence between an Ancient Greek and a modern mathematical concept is vacuous. What I always wonder in such cases is: would Archimedes have said the same, if we would have brought him up to speed about real numbers, etc.? – R.P. May 02 '17 at 00:52
  • @Conifold: Lastly, I wonder, should we then defend the notion that the equivalence between the Roman numeral LXXIX and the Arabic numeral 79, that some people claim exists, is fictitious as well? I.e. where does this madness end? Mathematicians are in general quite charitable in agreeing that different languages can express the same core idea. Historians of mathematics think they are clever for not buying into the concept of 'core idea', but it isn't cleverness if it's just a dogmatic refusal to engage with pre-existing ideas. It is a saddening intellectual sterility posing as sophistication. – R.P. May 02 '17 at 01:08
  • @René This controversy was discussed under Current ways of thinking in the History of Mathematics. Most of it seems to come from different goals. Mathematicians are interested in heritage readings, making old ideas fruitful today, and that is where "core ideas" and drive for modernization come from. The job of historians is different, it is to preserve original readings as closely as possible so that tomorrow others still have them available, along with modernizations from various todays. – Conifold May 02 '17 at 01:14
  • @Conifold: it was discussed there, but I feel it is equally relevant here. You are right that there are fascinating differences between the way Archimedes phrased his results and the way we do this. However, your own position seems paradoxical. On the one hand, you describe how Archimedes' result came to be reinterpreted as $V=4/3 \pi r^3$ in the long run. On the other, you warn against equating one with the other. Now how can you defend that? Your explanation comes down to (correct me if I'm wrong): 'the Greeks did not have real numbers, so they had to make do with the theory of ratios'. – R.P. May 02 '17 at 01:21
  • @Conifold: (ctd) Now if I would be as sticklerish as yourself, I would say that this explanation is as anachronistic and Whiggist as anything, because the Greeks surely wouldn't have subscribed to the idea that their theory of ratios arose from not knowing about the real numbers. So it seems that the limits that modern historiographers impose on themselves are too strict even for their own good. – R.P. May 02 '17 at 01:23
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    @René Modern mathematics is one possible outcome into which Greek mathematics developed. We can trace the development, as we can trace the evolution of animals from reptiles to mammals. But Greek mathematics stands on its own, it did not have to "make do" without something we use today, any more than reptiles had to make do without live birth and nursing. Real numbers are not the only outcome into which ratios could have developed, any more than mammals are for reptiles. If we "core idea" reptiles into mammals we can gain in some areas, but specifically reptilian may also come handy one day. – Conifold May 02 '17 at 01:40
  • @RoryDaulton After 8 years, I understood what you wrote! That is a fantastic speculation, but for me it looks quite possible! I hope, maybe it could be possible to find some evidence to it. – peterh Dec 31 '23 at 19:38