Works
by Archimedes
Assigned by 2 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- c. 250-212 BCE
- Language
- Greek
- Length
- Long · 400 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Formidable5 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Works of Archimedes, translated by T. L. HeathDover, 2002Heath's 1897 edition with The Method, in modern notation; the text used in Great Books.
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The surviving treatises of the greatest mathematician of antiquity, written in Syracuse in the third century BCE. They include On the Sphere and Cylinder, which finds the surface and volume of the sphere; Measurement of a Circle, which bounds pi; On Spirals; On Conoids and Spheroids; Quadrature of the Parabola; The Sand-Reckoner, which invents a notation for enormous numbers; On the Equilibrium of Planes, which founds statics on the law of the lever; On Floating Bodies, which founds hydrostatics; and The Method, recovered from a palimpsest in 1906, which shows how he found his results.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Works 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.
