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A generalisation of Archimedes' method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Christoph Kirfel
Christoph Kirfel*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Johannes Brunsgt, 12, 50 20 Bergen, Norway, e-mail:Christoph.kirfel@math.uib.no
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Extract

Archimedes developed a method for calculating the area of a segment of a parabola. This result was outstanding in mathematical antiquity. The idea and the method were not developed further until nearly 1800 years later. In our article his method is presented in modem notation using modem concepts. We show that the method generalises to curves of higher order. Many of Archimedes' arguments can be used without any adjustments and thus show the strength of his original approach.

The mathematician from Syracuse, Archimedes (born about 287 BC, died 212 BC), developed a method for the calculation of the area of a segment of the parabola.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 97 , Issue 538 , March 2013 , pp. 43 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2013

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