Ancient Mathematician Quotes

Archimedes

Pythagoras

Aristarchus of Samos

Thou shalt likewise know that according to Law, the nature of this universe is in all things a like.

Any solid lighter than a fluid will, if placed in the fluid, be so far immersed that the weight of the solid will be equal to the weight of the fluid displaced.

We are now in a position to prove the following propositions:

1. The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen times, but less than twenty times, the distance of the moon (from the earth); this follows from the hypothesis about the halved moon.
2. The diameter of the sun has the same ratio (as aforesaid) to the diameter of the moon.
3. The diameter of the sun has to the diameter of the earth a ratio greater than that which 19 has to 3, but less than that which 43 has to 6; this follows from the ratio thus discovered between the distances, the hypothesis about the shadow, and the hypothesis that the moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the zodiac.

Aristarchus of Samos