On Conic Sections
by Apollonius of Perga · Κωνικά
Assigned by 2 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- c. 200 BCE
- Language
- Greek
- Length
- Medium · 260 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Formidable5 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendConics, Books I-III, translated by R. Catesby TaliaferroGreen Lion Press, 2000The translation used at St. John's and Thomas Aquinas College, with diagrams reworked for study; the 1939 Taliaferro text is the one Great Books reprinted.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
A treatise in eight books, of which seven survive, on the curves produced by cutting a cone with a plane. Apollonius shows that the ellipse, parabola and hyperbola can all be obtained from any cone and gives them their names, then proves their properties from the relation of ordinates to the diameter, an approach that anticipates coordinates. Books 1 to 4 set out the basic theory, including tangents and the two branches of the hyperbola; Books 5 to 7 treat normals, equal and similar conics, and the lengths of conjugate diameters.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns On Conic Sections are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
