Using his ‘sieve’ Eratosthenes solved the problem of how to find prime numbers logically and systematically. In the case of primes up to 110, they are all shown in the final table above. • He produced the first map of the world featuring meridian lines and parallel lines. A large Jewish population lived in the city among the Greeks and Africans. Euclid lived in Alexandria, Egypt, part of Ancient Greece. He then added a correction of 2000 stades (lacking his original work, we don’t know why he did this) and concluded that: All we need to do now is convert stades to modern units. Unfortunately, other than a few scraps, little remains of Eratosthenes’ original work. Alexandria was the cultural center of the ancient world. © copyright 2003-2020 Study.com. What Happens when the Universe chooses its own Units? Cyrene, then a Greek city, is now the town of Shahhat in Libya. He was born in about 190 BC and died in about 120 BC. • He invented geography. He could see with his own eyes in Alexandria that there were small shadows at midday on the longest day. ‘Beta’ could be used as an insult or a compliment. Darwin Pleaded for Cheaper Origin of Species, Getting Through Hard Times – The Triumph of Stoic Philosophy, Johannes Kepler, God, and the Solar System, Charles Babbage and the Vengeance of Organ-Grinders, Howard Robertson – the Man who Proved Einstein Wrong, Susskind, Alice, and Wave-Particle Gullibility, 11 Great Scientists Who Rose From Harsh Beginnings. His other nickname was ‘the pentathlete.’ The meaning is similar to Beta in that a pentathlete has to be very good at five different sports, but will probably not be a champion in any individual sport. It is both fascinating and awe-inspiring that over 2000 years ago, the Ancient Greeks realized that mathematics could be used to calculate the size of our planet using measurements from only a small part of it. The star constellations lying on the ecliptic make up the zodiac. Cataloging of scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, drawn in the 1800s based on the scholarship of the time. • He was the first person to explain why the River Nile flooded every year – i.e. (Our current value for Earth’s polar circumference is 40,075.16 km or 24,901.55 miles.) Both seemed to use the same nicknames for him – he had two nicknames we know about. Eratosthenes was an Ancient Greek scientist born in the town of Cyrene in about 276 BC. All of the numbers that are not prime have been sieved out using Eratosthenes’ method. Say you wanted to check all the numbers up to 110, you would write: You would then remove 1, since it’s not prime. © All rights reserved. Eratosthenes’ friend, the great Archimedes, entrusted him with an enormously important treatise called The Method. Create your account. The Library had lecture halls and meeting rooms. Eratosthenes called himself ‘philologos’ – ‘lover of learning.’. According to the great Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus, who was born within a few years of Eratosthenes’ death, Eratosthenes invented the armillary sphere. The proof was written in Euclid’s Elements. • In about 240 BC Eratosthenes calculated Earth’s size with good accuracy. The prime numbers go on forever. We know him best for two important achievements: producing an accurate estimate of how big Earth is; and devising a method to find prime numbers. These were similar to our modern lines of latitude and longitude. The earth is the solid sphere at the center of the device. We still use the word he coined for the discipline. Mathematicians look on them in the same way as chemists look on the chemical elements. The greatest Greek, African and Middle Eastern scholars studied in the city, particularly at the library. In an updated form, this is still important in modern number theory. Prime numbers are the building blocks of all other numbers. The greatest minds of Greece sent their work to him as papyrus scrolls. Leave 2, which is prime, and remove every number divisible by 2 – this means remove every second number from 2 onwards, to get: And now, leaving 3 alone, you remove every multiple of 3, to get: The next number to leave is 5. Legend has it that Eratosthenes went blind and died by starving himself when he was 80 to 82 years old. Eratosthenes multiplied 50 x 5000 to get an answer of 250,000 stades for Earth’s circumference. Eratosthenes was the first person to use the word "geography" and other geographical terms that are still in use today, and his efforts to calculate the circumference of the Earth and the distance from the Earth to the Sun paved … He found it was one-fiftieth of a whole circle. Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) was the chief librarian of Alexandria and discovered through observation and mathematics the circumference of the Earth and... See full answer below. The procedure can be used to find primes to as high a limit as you like. Archimedes lived in Syracuse, Sicily, part of Ancient Greece. • He produced a timeline recording all of the achievements of science since the time the Greeks laid siege to Troy. Sciences, Culinary Arts and Personal According to the great Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus, who was born within a few years of Eratosthenes’ death, Eratosthenes invented the armillary sphere. The image above is from a painting by Bernardo Strozzi in the year 1635, nineteen centuries after the era of Eratosthenes. He marked the equator and its size, considered the size of the polar zones and how far these zones were from the tropics. Eratosthenes, in full Eratosthenes of Cyrene, (born c. 276 bce, Cyrene, Libya—died c. 194 bce, Alexandria, Egypt), Greek scientific writer, astronomer, and poet, who made the first measurement of the size of Earth for which any details are known. For 1800 years, until the telescope was invented, the armillary sphere was the most important instrument in astronomy for determining the positions of celestial objects. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. then, you could calculate how big Earth is. Earn Transferable Credit & Get your Degree. Eratosthenes was educated in philosophy and mathematics in Athens. Syene was more-or-less due south of Alexandria, therefore the angle of the shadow must mean something. The ecliptic – the sun’s annual path on the celestial sphere seen from the earth – is shown as the broadest ring, tilted at an angle to the horizontal rings. Whichever way you look at it, this was an enormous advance in an era when most people in the world had no idea our planet is approximately spherical. 3. you measure the angle of the shadow in Alexandria when there is no shadow in Syene To use the Sieve of Eratosthenes, first decide the highest number you wish to check. Everything that had been learned about the world by the Greeks – and that was a lot – was within his reach. Not restricting himself to science, Eratosthenes excelled at nearly all things intellectual. There are an infinite number of them. We usually have to rely on comments from people who were around at the time and in the following few centuries to get an idea of what Eratosthenes wrote. Important People in World History Study Guide, AP Comparative Government and Politics: Exam Prep, AP European History: Homework Help Resource, Western Civilization 1648 to the Present: Help and Review, TCI History Alive The Medieval World and Beyond: Online Textbook Help, TExES History 7-12 (233): Practice & Study Guide, McDougal Littell Modern World History - Patterns of Interaction: Online Textbook Help, Middle School US History: Tutoring Solution, Holt World History - Human Legacy: Online Textbook Help, High School World History: Homework Help Resource, Biological and Biomedical • Eratosthenes saw that the heavens seemed to rotate once a day around Earth. 1. you make the assumption that planet Earth is a sphere It shows Eratosthenes teaching geography, the academic discipline he founded. The Library of Alexandria is said to have contained over half a million books in scroll form. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. (‘Geo’ was Greek for ‘Earth’ and ‘graphy’ meant ‘field of study.’). He was born in about 276 BC and died in about 194 BC.

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