Apollonius

=Apollonius of Perga~"The great geometer"= Apollonius was born in Perga, Pamphylia (now known as Antalya, Turkey) in 262 BC. Apollonius studied in Alexandria and may even have been under the influence of Euclid's followers. Later on in his life also taught at the university in Alexandria. During Apollonius' younger days he also visited Ephesus and Pergamum meeting Eudemus. Alexandria was also the birthplace of Apollonius' first edition of __Conics__. The book of __Conics__ concerned circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas all of which where to find them when the surface of a cone intersects a plane. Apollonius actually introduced the terms ellipse, parabola and hyperbola. He had told his friend that he wrote __Conics__ too hurriedly and so he was going to make better versions. When he made the better or improved versions of __Conics__, he sent them to Eudemus and King Attalus I. He wrote eight books of conics. The second book was transported to Pergamum where it was given to Eudemus by Apollonius' son. Four of the books survived in origional greek, three in translated Arabic from the ninth century and the eighth book is now lost. Apollonius' work on conics basically improved the work done by Euclid and other mathematicians from before. Apollonius died about 192 BC in Alexandria at the age of 72.

=Contributions to the Math World= Apollonius introduced huge new ideas about the subject of conics. He also creatd many books but only seven __Conics__ and one copy of __Cutting Off a Ratio__ (17th century edition) have survived the years. His books included __On the Burning Mirror__, __On the Cylindrical Helix__, __Tangencies__, etc. His books included the work of Euclid, and Archimedes as well as new ideas and imrpovements of his own. The work of Apollonius mostly centered around geometry but it did venture into optics and some Astronomy. He also introduced the idea of epicycles to Ptolemy. Ptolemy actually wrote that Apollonius presented the idea to him in his book called __Syntaxes__. Apollonius created a hemicyclium, this is a sundial with hour lines on a conic section creating more accuracy.

__Apollonius of Perga (c. 262–c. 190 BC)__. Encyclopedia of Science. 2/28/2008 . __Apolonius of Perga__. 1999 School of Mathematics and Statistics. 2/28/2008 <[|http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Apollonius.html>.] __Apollonius of Perga | 262-190 BC | Greek mathematician__. Nahste. 2/27/2008 <[|http://www.nahste.ac.uk/isaar/GB_0237_NAHSTE_P1095.html>.] ** “mathematics ** ." __Encyclopædia Britannica__. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.   28 Feb. 2008    <[|http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-65984>.