Diophantus of Alexandria – an Alexandrian mathematician

Diophantus was a Greek mathematician, famous for his work in algebra. He often called the ‘father of algebra' who was the first to use symbols, or variables to represents unknown quantities.

He likely flourished during the 3rd century. He lived in Alexandria, the center of the scientific thought of the Hellenic world.

For many centuries, Alexandria was a scientific and cultural center for the ancient world, because of Ptolemy’s founding of the Musaeon, the temple of the Muses, a kind of Academy of Sciences which attracted leading scholars. For the first to the third century scholars such as Heron, Ptolemy and Diophantus worked here.

Diophantus of Alexandria wrote several books the most influential by far being his Arithmetica, and extensive treatise on number theory and algebraic equations.

Only six of the 13 books which make up the Arithmetic have survived today. Diophantus ‘Arithmetic’ is a collection of problems (189 in all) each of which comes with one or more solutions and the necessary explanations. Many of this problems concern various ways of writing sums, differences or products of numbers as perfect squares.
Diophantus of Alexandria – an Alexandrian mathematician

Greek mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria also known as Father of Algebra

Diophantus of Alexandria was an Alexandrian Greek mathematician and known as the “father of Algebra”. He is best known for his Arithmetica, a unique collection of 189 algebraic equations and their solutions. Probably born sometime between 201 and 215 AD and died sometime probably between 285 AD and 299AD. He is believed to have lived to be about 84 years

Diophantus did original mathematical work on a variety of problems which can be phrased as single equations or systems of equations, sometimes with a unique solution, sometimes with a finite or infinite family of solutions – although he was content with finding one solution. Diophantus, who seems to have been a Hellenised Babylonian, i.e., someone with a Mesopotamian background but who lived in Alexandrian Greece and who wrote in Greek, is of unsure dates; scholars say that he worked around the year 150 or, more likely, 250.

Qusta ibn Luqa, a Greek christian, worked for the better part of his life as a translator and commentator at the court of Baghdad. He translated Diophantus from Greek into Arabic, probably the first seven books of the Arithmetica. The books IV through VII from this translation resurfaced around 1971 in the Astan Quds Library in Meshed (Iran) in a copy from1198 AD.

Four major contributions:
• Arithmetica (13 Books - only 6 are now Extant)
• Moriastica
• On Polygonal Numbers - of which only fragments now exist
• Porisms

Greek mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria also known as Father of Algebra

Euclid of Alexandria

The most famous mathematician of all time was one of the first scholars to move to Alexandria. His name was Euclid. It is believed that he was the son of Naucrates and the grandson of Zenarchus or of Berenice, that he was of Greek descent and that he lived in Damascus although he had been born in Tyre.

Euclid lived and taught in Alexandria at the same time as Ptolemy I was still wandering the halls of the Greta Library.

His main work the Elements of Geometry, and he was called Euclid of Alexandria, because that city is the only one with which he can be almost certainly connected.

The thirteen books of the Elements show mathematics at its most elegant, with problems solved in concise logical ways. Euclid’s Elements is so well organized that it remained the standard geometry textbook until the twentieth century.

He was probably educated in Athens and if so, he received his mathematical tarring at the Academy, which was the outstanding mathematical school of the fourth century and the only one where he could have gathered easily all the knowledge that he possessed.

Euclid the Alexandria died around 270 BC.
Euclid of Alexandria

Who is Claudius Ptolemy?

Claudius Ptolemy was born around 100 AD., probably in Alexandria but possibly in Hermiou in Upper Egypt. He was a mathematician, astronomer and geographer.

Ptolemy lived during a stable period of internal tranquility and good government, and his main work appears to have been done during the reign of the Emperor Titus Antonius Pius, which lasted from 138 to 161 AD. 

Before his death in the late 170’s he had written a wide variety of works that included four major compendia: the Syntaxis Mathematike, the Geography, the Tetrabiblos and the Optics.

The Optics was probably written in the later years of his life. Translated into Arabic by the early tenth century at latest, this work has left no trace in either Greek or Arabic.

He presented his picture of the universe in his book Syntaxis Mathematike, in which he summed up ancient Greek thinking about the movements of the heavens. The book of Syntaxis Mathematike, is now almost universally known by the name ‘Almagest’ after the Arabic translation.

The earth according to Ptolemy was a sphere located at the centre of the universe.

The Almagest holds a prominent place in the history of mathematics and astronomy and was used as a primary resource for many hundreds of years.
Who is Claudius Ptolemy?