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The vexing problem of ancient Greek mathematics

Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes viewed mathematics in a very different way to us, but Reviel Netz helps us glimpse the minds of antiquity’s great thinkers

4 February 2023

9:00 AM

4 February 2023

9:00 AM

A New History of Greek Mathematics Reviel Netz

Cambridge University Press, pp.540, 34.99

The most important thing to know about ancient Greek mathematics is how little anyone knows about it. The scant evidence available today is tremendously indirect: reconstructions from unrepresentative survivals of fragments of translations of transcriptions of commentaries on compilations of summaries of allusions to refutations of excerpts of documents produced as part of an oral culture of learning in which the original writing may never have been expected to encapsulate what really mattered.

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