Eutocius of Ascalon

5th–6th century Greek mathematician

Eutocius of Ascalon (/juːˈtoʊʃəs/; Greek: Εὐτόκιος ὁ Ἀσκαλωνίτης; c. 480s – c. 520s) was a Greek mathematician who wrote commentaries on several Archimedean treatises and on the Apollonian Conics.

Life and work

Little is known about the life of Eutocius. He was born in Ascalon, then in Palestina Prima and lived during the reign of Justinian. Eutocius probably became the head of the Alexandrian school following Ammonius, and he was succeeded in this position by Olympiodorus, possibly as early as 525.^[1] From his testimony, it seems he traveled to other cultural centers of his time to find missing manuscripts.

Eutocius wrote commentaries on Apollonius and on Archimedes. The surviving commentaries are:

A Commentary on the first four books of the Conics of Apollonius.^[2]
Commentaries^[3] on Archimedes' work:
- On the Sphere and Cylinder I-II.
- Measurement of the Circle (Latin: In Archimedis Dimensionem Circuli).
- On the Equilibrium of Planes I-II.
An introduction to Book I of Ptolemy's Almagest.^[4]

Historians owe much of their knowledge of Archimedes' solution of a cubic by means of intersecting conics, alluded to in On the Sphere and Cylinder, to Eutocius and his commentaries. Eutocius dedicated his commentary on Apollonius' Conics to Anthemius of Tralles, also a mathematician and the architect of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.^[5]

References

^ Watts, p. 233-234
^ "Conica". whistleralley.com. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
^ Eutocii Ascalonitae commentarius. 1401–1500.
^ "Eutocius – Biography". Maths History. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
^ Boyer, p. 193. "Eutocius (born ca. 480), commented on several Archimedean treatises and on the Apollonian Conics. It is to Eutocius that we owe the Archimedean solution of a cubic through intersecting conics, referred to in The Sphere and Cylinder but not otherwise extant except through the commentary of Eutocius. The commentary by Eutocius on the Conics of Apollonius was dedicated to Anthemius of Tralles (t534), an able mathematician and architect of St. Sophia of Constantinople."

Sources

Boyer, Carl Benjamin (1991). A History of Mathematics (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-54397-7.

Watts, Edward J. (2006). City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25816-7.

External links

O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Eutocius of Ascalon", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

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