For questions about events occurring in Greece and the immediate areas around it between 800 B.C. and 600 A.D.
Questions tagged [ancient-greece]
134 questions
8
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1 answer
Adrastus, Proclus, and 2+8+50+288+… versus 1+9+49+289+…
According to the MacTutor essay "D'Arcy Thompson on Greek irrationals" (which I take to be a version of Thompson's original essay whose only liberty with the original text is giving English translations where Thompson gives Greek words and phrases),…
James Propp
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7
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2 answers
When $1$ wasn't really a number in Greece
I'm reading "Professor Stewart's Incredible Numbers," by Ian Stewart and in there it is claimed that
In early Greece, the list of numbers started $2, 3, 4,$ and so on: $1$ was special, not "really" a number. Later, when this convention started to…
Shaun
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6
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3 answers
How was the Antikythera Mechanism moved?
I understood all the gears and cogwheels in the Antikythera Machine, but I am not sure what make all these stuffs works inside the box.
Is it mechanical movement done in hand-wound style?
Max
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5
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2 answers
how sophisticated was Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics compared to the Greeks
It seems like the focus always tends to be on the achievement of Greek math (which strikes of eurocentrism a little bit) while civilizations like the Egyptians and Babylonians are overlooked
why do we overlook their mathematical contributions?
user4281
- 615
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5
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Plato's chemical formula for water
In a paper about Plato's Timaeus I came across a cryptic note saying: "Academic research usually avoids noting that Plato's assertion about water consisting of two parts air and one part fire is strikingly similar to the modern chemical formula…
sand1
- 2,387
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4
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1 answer
Thales and measuring vertical angles
According to Wikipedia’s web page dedicated to Thales of Miletus, he came to the idea to prove the equality of vertical angles as a theorem when he saw that the Egyptians, after intersecting two lines, would overlay an angle over the opposite to…
bandi
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2
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1 answer
What did the Greeks call the “trial and error” reasoning process?
What did the Greeks call the "trial and error" reasoning process?
Bruce Aune's review of Wilson's Peirce's Empiricism: Its Roots and Its Originality claims "The name 'empirici' is in fact traceable to a Greek verb meaning 'to make trial of.'"
Geremia
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2
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1 answer
Instances of the use and application of mathematics in Ancient Greece
I am setting out to write a paper, the thesis of which only needs to have the property that it addresses "how was mathematics used in Ancient Greece".
I have begun my own investigation (i.e. excessive googling) to see what I can find, but was…
Prince M
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vote
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Was Aristotle first to talk about gravity?
Aristotle was chatting about forces we later identified as gravity at about 300BC. He made a few mistakes regarding heavy objects falling faster etc, but that is by the by. Was he the first ever to talk about.... "gravity"? or were there others…
user7488
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0
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What is the story behind the recently discovered gear fragment of Olbia?
Until yesterday i thought that nothing direct is known about the "Archimedes's planetarium" - an elaborate ancient planetarium based on complex gear mechanism that could represent the geocentric motions of the seven classical planets (the sun, the…
user2554
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