Menaechmus

Menaechmus

Born: about 380 BC in Alopeconnesus (near Cyzicus) (now Turkey)
Died: about 320 BC

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Menaechmus is famed for his discovery of the conic sections and he was the first to show that ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas are obtained by cutting a cone in a plane not parallel to the base.

Menaechmus made his discoveries on conic sections while he was attempting to solve the problem of duplicating the cube.

Menaechmus is mentioned by Proclus who tells us that he was a pupil of Eudoxus in the following quote

Amyclas of Heraclea, one of the associates of Plato, and Menaechmus, a pupil of Eudoxus who had studied with Plato, and his brother Dinostratus made the whole of geometry still more perfect.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Show me more about conic sections

Show me Menaechmus's construction for the duplication of the cube

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. G J Allman, Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid (Dublin-London, 1889), 153-179.
  3. T L Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics I (Oxford, 1921), 251-255. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996