Apollonius of Perga
Ancient Greek geometer and astronomer noted for his writings on conic sections · Turkey · Scientists · Lived 262 BC to 190 BC · aged 72
Apollonius of Perga is read about 192 times a day, in 69 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He gave us the words we still use - ellipse, parabola, hyperbola - and carried the study of conic sections further than anyone before calculus existed. A geometer working around 200 BC whose definitions outlasted empires.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 7
The conic sections, or two-dimensional figures formed by the intersection of a plane with a cone at different angles. The theory of these figures was developed extensively by the ancient Greek mathematicians, surviving especially in works such as those of Apollonius of Perga. The conic sections pervade modern mathematics.
The animated figure depicts the method of "application of areas" to express the mathematical relationship that characterizes a parabola. The upper left corner of the changing rectangle on the left side and the upper right corner on the right side is "any point on the section". The animation has it following the section. The orange square at the top is "the square on the distance from the point to the diameter; i.e., a square of the ordinate. In Apollonius, the orientation is horizontal rather than the vertical shown here. Here it is the square of the abscissa. Regardless of orientation, the equation is the same, names changed. The blue rectangle on the outside is the rectangle on the other coordinate and the distance
p
.
{\displaystyle p.}
In algebra,
x
2
=
p
y
,
{\displaystyle x^{2}=py,}
one form of the equation for a parabola. If the outer rectangle exceeds
p
y
{\displaystyle py}
in area, the section must be a hyperbola; if it is less, an ellipse.
Visual form of the Pythagorean theorem as the ancient Greeks saw it. The area of the blue square is the sum of the areas of the other two squares.
Cartesian coordinate system, standard in analytic geometry
Pages from the 9th century Arabic translation of the Conics
1661 edition of Conica by Apollonius edited by Giuseppe CocchiniAbout this person
Apollonius built on what Euclid and Archimedes had started, taking the geometry of conic sections to a peak that wouldn't be surpassed until analytic geometry arrived centuries later. Most of his work beyond geometry - including astronomy - is lost, known only through fragments cited by later writers like Pappus. He proposed that planets moved in eccentric orbits to account for their strange wanderings across the sky, a model that held through the Middle Ages before the Renaissance swept it aside. A crater on the Moon carries his name now.
Scientists from Turkey 6
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