Eudoxus

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Born: 408 BC in Cnidus (on Resadiye peninsula), Asia Minor (now Turkey)
Died: 355 BC in Cnidus, Asia Minor (now Turkey)

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Eudoxus studied at Plato's Academy and was a student of Euclid. He spent over a year in Egypt and then became a travelling teacher. He proposed a heliocentric system and invented the astrolabe. Other important contributions were to the theory of proportion, where he made a definition of equal ratios similar to cross multiplying, and early work on integration with the theory of exhaustion.

The kampyle curve was studied by Eudoxus also in relation to the classical problem of duplication of the cube. Eudoxus found formulas for measuring pyramids cones and cylinders. Books V and XII of Euclid's Elements are attributed to Eudoxus by some experts.

References elsewhere in this archive:

You can see more about the Kampyle curve

Eudoxus was one of the early mathematicians to investigate squaring the circle. The method of exhaustion was developed by Archimedes and led to an early determination of an approximation for pi.
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References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. G Huxley, Eudoxian Topics, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 4 (1963), 83-96.
  4. T L Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics I (Oxford, 1921).
  5. T L Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements, 3 Vols. (Oxford, 1956). 
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JOC/EFR February 1996