Quadrature of the parabola and The Method
Cuadratura de la parábola, esfera y cilindro y El Método
- Date
- c. 250 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Syracuse, Sicily, Italy
- Credited to
- Archimedes of Syracuse
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Calculation of the area of a parabolic segment (4/3 of the inscribed triangle), of the volume and surface area of a sphere (2/3 of the circumscribed cylinder), and, in The Method, the use of indivisibles and levers to discover results before proving them. It is the clearest forerunner of integral calculus.
The Method was lost and only recovered in 1906 in the Archimedes Palimpsest.
What it led to
- Cavalieri's indivisibles
- integral calculus
- centres of gravity
Built on
- Method of exhaustion and theory of proportionsc. 370 BCE
- Eudoxus's method of exhaustion
Made possible
- statics
- machine engineering