Apollonius of Perga

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. c.240 BC Perga, Pamphylia, Greece

d. 190 BC

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Greek mathematician, geometer and astronomer.

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Ruins of the ancient Greek city of Perga lie near to the Turkish town of Murtana, just inland from Antalya on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Apollonius, while quite young, went to Alexandria to study under the successors to Euclid. He also worked in Ephesus and Pergamum. He later carried out original studies into the geometrical proportions of conic sections, producing his famous work Conies and naming the ellipse, the parabola and the hyperbola. Conics, which appeared soon after 200 BC, consisted of eight treatises and earned him the name "the great geometer", given to him by his contemporaries. Seven of the eight treatises have survived, four in the original Greek and three in Arabic translation; a Latin translation was edited by Halley in 1710. Apollonius also published works on the cylindrical helix and theories of the epicycles and eccentrics, with reference to the motion of the planets.

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Further Reading

G.J.Toomer, Apollonius: Conies, Berlin: Springer Verlag.

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