Eratosthenes contribution in mathematics

Eratosthenes pronunciation
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When was eratosthenes born

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Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 – 194 BC) was a 3rd century BC Greekmathematician, geographer and astronomer. He was head of the Library of Alexandria from 240 BC until his death: this was the most important library of the ancient world.

According to the Suda,^[1] his contemporaries nicknamed him Beta, (the second letter of the Greek alphabet), because he was the second best in the world in almost any field.^[2] Eratosthenes was a friend of Archimedes, who also lived and worked in Alexandria. Archimedes was the greatest mathematician and inventor of the age, so perhaps the Beta nickname was not unjust.

The works Eratosthenes wrote are known to us only indirectly: the great Library was destroyed, and no copies survived. Strabo (~63BC–24AD) wrote about geography in antiquity. He tells us that the works of Eratosthenes were On the measurement of the Earth and Geographica.

Eratosthenes made several remarkable discoveries and inventions. He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth (with remarkable accuracy), and he

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Eratosthenes

Greek mathematician, geographer, poet (c. 276 – c. 195/194 BC)

This article is about the Greek scholar of the third century BC. For other uses, see Eratosthenes (disambiguation).

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης[eratostʰénɛːs]; c. 276 BC – c. 195/194 BC) was an Ancient Greek polymath: a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. His work is comparable to what is now known as the study of geography, and he introduced some of the terminology still used today.^[1]

He is best known for being the first person known to calculate the Earth's circumference, which he did by using the extensive survey results he could access in his role at the Library. His calculation was remarkably accurate (his error margin turned out to be less than 1%).^[2]^[3] He was also the first person to calculate Earth's axial tilt, which similarly proved to have remarkable accuracy.^[4] He created the first g

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Biography

Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene which is now in Libya in North Africa. His teachers included the scholar Lysanias of Cyrene and the philosopher Ariston of Chios who had studied under Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy. Eratosthenes also studied under the poet and scholar Callimachus who had also been born in Cyrene. Eratosthenes then spent some years studying in Athens.

The library at Alexandria was planned by Ptolemy I Soter and the project came to fruition under his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The library was based on copies of the works in the library of Aristotle. Ptolemy II Philadelphus appointed one of Eratosthenes' teachers Callimachus as the second librarian. When Ptolemy III Euergetes succeeded his father in 245 BC and he persuaded Eratosthenes to go to Alexandria as the tutor of his son Philopator. On the death of Callimachus in about 240 BC, Eratosthenes became the third librarian at Alexandria, in the library in a temple of the Muses called the Mouseion. The library is said to have contained hundreds of thousands of papyrus and vellu