Nicomedes (; grc-gre, Νικομήδης; c. 280 – c. 210 BC) was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

Life and work

Almost nothing is known about Nicomedes' life apart from references in his works. Studies have stated that Nicomedes was born in about 280 BC and died in about 210 BC. It is known that he lived around the time of Eratosthenes or after, because he criticized Eratosthenes' method of

doubling the cube Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometric problem. Given the edge of a cube, the problem requires the construction of the edge of a second cube whose volume is double that of the first. As with the related probl ...

. It is also known that Apollonius of Perga called a curve of his creation a "sister of the conchoid", suggesting that he was naming it after Nicomedes' already famous curve. Consequently, it is believed that Nicomedes lived after Eratosthenes and before Apollonius of Perga. Like many geometers of the time, Nicomedes was engaged in trying to solve the problems of doubling the cube and trisecting the angle, both problems we now understand to be impossible using the tools of classical

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

. In the course of his investigations, Nicomedes created the conchoid of Nicomedes; a discovery that is contained in his famous work entitled ''On conchoid lines''. Nicomedes discovered three distinct types of conchoids, now unknown. Pappus wrote: "Nicomedes trisected any rectilinear angle by means of the conchoidal curves, the construction, order and properties of which he handed down, being himself the discoverer of their peculiar character". Nicomedes also used the

Hippias Hippias of Elis (; el, Ἱππίας ὁ Ἠλεῖος; late 5th century BC) was a Greek sophist, and a contemporary of Socrates. With an assurance characteristic of the later sophists, he claimed to be regarded as an authority on all subjects ...

quadratrix In geometry, a quadratrix () is a curve having ordinates which are a measure of the area (or quadrature) of another curve. The two most famous curves of this class are those of Dinostratus and E. W. Tschirnhaus, which are both related to the circ ...

to square the circle, since according to Pappus, "For the squaring of the circle there was used by Dinostratus, Nicomedes, and certain other later persons a certain curve which took its name from this property, for it is called by them square-forming".

Eutocius Eutocius of Ascalon (; el, Εὐτόκιος ὁ Ἀσκαλωνίτης; 480s – 520s) was a Palestinian-Greek mathematician who wrote commentaries on several Archimedean treatises and on the Apollonian ''Conics''. Life and work Little is ...

mentions that Nicomedes "prided himself inordinately on his discovery of this curve, contrasting it with Eratosthenes's mechanism for finding any number of mean proportionals, to which he objected formally and at length on the ground that it was impracticable and entirely outside the spirit of geometry".Heath (1921)

Citations and footnotes

References

* T. L. Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (2 Vols.) (Oxford, 1921). * G. J. Toomer, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970–1990).

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nicomedes Ancient Greek mathematicians 3rd-century BC Greek people 3rd-century BC writers 280s BC births 210s BC deaths 3rd-century BC mathematicians