Carpus of
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
( el, Κάρπος) was an ancient
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
. It is not certain when he lived; he may have lived any time between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. He wrote on
mechanics
Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects ...
,
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
, and
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 c ...
.
Proclus
Proclus Lycius (; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus the Successor ( grc-gre, Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, ''Próklos ho Diádokhos''), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophe ...
quotes from an ''Astronomical Treatise'' by Carpus concerning whether problems should come before theorems, in which Carpus may (or may not) have been criticising
Geminus. Proclus also quotes the view of Carpus that "an
angle
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles ...
is a quantity, namely a distance between the lines of surfaces containing it." According to
Pappus, Carpus made use of mathematics for practical applications. According to
Iamblichus, Carpus also constructed a curve for the purpose of
squaring the circle, which he calls a curve generated by a double motion.
[Iamblichus, quoted in Simplicius, ''Categories'', 192.19]
Notes
References
*Thomas Little Heath, ''A History of Greek Mathematics'', page 428. Courier Dover Publications.
*Michael Taunton, (2001), ''Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome'', pages 33–34. Cambridge University Press.
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Ancient Greek astronomers
Ancient Greek mathematicians