X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Pappus of Alexandria


Aristaeus the Elder

Practically nothing of his life is known except that the mathematician Pappus of Alexandria refers to him as Aristaeus the Elder which presumably means that Pappus was aware of another later mathematician also named Aristaeus.

Hazel Treweek

In 1949 the family went to England for "Ath", who had received a Nuffield Foundation fellowship, to do a doctorate on the evolution of the manuscript tradition of the Greek mathematician Pappus of Alexandria.

Honeycomb conjecture

The first record of the conjecture dates back to 36BC, from Marcus Terentius Varro, but is often attributed to Pappus of Alexandria (c. 290 – c. 350).

Neusis construction

Using neusis where other construction methods might have been used, was branded by the late Greek mathematician Pappus of Alexandria (ca. 325 AD) as "a not inconsiderable error".

Pappus's hexagon theorem

In mathematics, Pappus's hexagon theorem (attributed to Pappus of Alexandria) states that given one set of collinear points A, B, C, and another set of collinear points a, b, c, then the intersection points X, Y, Z of line pairs Ab and aB, Ac and aC, Bc and bC are collinear, lying on the Pappus line.

In its earliest known form, Pappus's Theorem is Propositions 138, 139, 141, and 143 of Book VII of Pappus's Collection.

Paul Guldin

(This theorem is also known as the Pappus–Guldinus theorem and Pappus's centroid theorem, attributed to Pappus of Alexandria.)

Porism

For as much as we know of this lost treatise we are indebted to the Collection of Pappus of Alexandria, who mentions it along with other geometrical treatises, and gives a number of lemmas necessary for understanding it.

Quadratrix

Pappus, in his Collections, treats its history, and gives two methods by which it can be generated.



see also

Pappus

Pappus's hexagon theorem, often just called 'Pappus's theorem', a theorem named for Pappus of Alexandria