The Contribution Of Eratosthene And Greek Cyrene

Greek society forever shaped western culture with its astounding advancements which future civilizations continued to utilize and build upon for generations to come. Among these many advancements, developments in three prominent areas will be discussed— politics, mathematics, and philosophy. In studying the Greek innovations within these subjects, we can recognize how other civilizations advanced and even identify what Greece has given to our modern culture in the West.

Trigonometry has been used for thousands of years, but many don’t know where it all began and originated. There were many individuals that contributed to the development of this area of study, which has created the official study of the relations of the sides and angles of triangles and the relevant functions of any angles. As a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician, Hipparchus of Rhodes is known as the person that laid the framework for trigonometry and is famous for his incidental discovery of precession of the equinoxes.

The Greeks were a civilization that have been admired and studied by historians for over hundreds of years before their tragic collapse. An extraordinary individual named Eratosthenes was born in a small Greek colony called Cyrene, he was a very talented Grecian who has a young man traveled to Athens to pursue studies. In all my years of reading about the ancient Greeks and studying geography, the name “Eratosthenes” had always come up. Taking AP Human Geography last year, my teacher was captivated by Eratosthenes and he would continuously state facts about him. But a unique statement struck me and could never leave my head. When talking about the earths tilt, latitude, and longitude he told us that someone over 2250 years ago, with only basic

In other words Claudius Ptolemy was an astronomer who was born during the year 85 AD . He spent most of his life studying how the Earth, Planets, and Sun moved. He was one of the very first astronomers so, not very much was known. A lot of people doubted him because in his time religion was very important and they thought that they only thing you couldn't see with the naked eye was Heaven and hell. His first time he published his observation was on March 26th 127. He spent almost 20 years getting his theory to make sense. He knew people wouldn't believe him so he broke down his discovery into thirteen books and each book was a part of his discovery. After he published his first one he was able to do a couple small ones, but sadly, the last of his discoveries was made on

Without them we would be extremely behind on our military intelligence, math, sciences, history, arts, and understanding of the world. Although both societies were strong, it was made evident through this paper that the Greeks were significantly more influential to society of ancient and modern times. The Romans, known for their strong military and conquests, are now remembered as the strong unity of countries with cunning and intelligent leaders for their militia. However, the Greeks are known for their arts and philosophy, which will forever have the most significant impact on the world. Thus, although both were powerful societies, in two very different ways, the Greeks were fairly obviously the most influential society of both the modern and ancient world. To put it in the perspective of one who may read this, if science and math were not further advanced by the Greeks, teenagers would be without their cell phones, computers, televisions and any other modern technical device that many claim they simple could not live without. Obviously, the Greek discoveries are an extremely important part in not just ancient societies, but also in modern advancement in every technological field. Evidently, the brains beat out the

“Socrates.” Arts and Humanities Through the Eras, 2: Ancient Greece and Rome 1200 B.C.E.-476 C.E., Gale, Detroit, 2005, pp. 250–254. Gale Virtual Reference Library, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=rahw52009&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE|CX3427400293&asid=fd1036c59c9b2487c1388a36aa5e12c2. Accessed 2017.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a man who became a Greek astronomer. He was born about 275 BCE in Libya in the North Africa. He was not only astronomer but also a geometries, philosopher, geographer and poet. He was known as the first man who made scientific calculation boundary of the earth. He created map of the antique world by his mathematician knowledge, on the map he included containing shape of longitude and latitude. Geography the term was coined by this man Eratosthenes who created this term for study the whole earth. He had wonderful talent about everything; he also invented a

For instance, Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C. - 1 A.D., has a linear outline which shows Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods and their timeframes from 900 B.C. to 31 B.C. The overview summarizes the most important historical facts and achievements in the arts. For example, the Ancient Greece timeline is defined as a period during which “spreading the Greek culture across the seas, laying the foundations for democracy, and flourishing of literature, science, and the arts” have occurred. Key events include a number of significant occasions such as foundation of the Olympic Games, composing the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, building the Parthenon, foundation of Academy and Lyceum, death of the Alexander the Great, and the others. The related content leads the visitors to the lists of rulers, thematic essays, and index terms, which we will discuss later. The segment of works of art displays the Metropolitan’s

Posidonius, a Syrian born man best known for his Greek philosophy of ancient times. In the year 135 B.C. Posidonius was born, little did anyone know that the birth of this one man would change the way philosophy was studied and approached. Posidonius’ family were Greek settlers, however, it was very clear that Posidonius had no interest in his home land. As expressed through his writings, he often mocked the people of his town “Clutching knives on their belts and filthy, rusting spears…dragging behind them donkeys piled high with all manner of wine, food, flutes, and musical instruments- prepared for a party rather than a battle”(Freeman, Pg. 11). As any other Greek boy in his social class, Posidonius studied reading, writing, music, and poetry

Euripides, writer of Medea, is an extremely well-known author for his literature of intense dramatic novelties that have fiercely influenced drama, “particularly in the representation of traditional, well-known heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary surroundings”. “He was born in 480 BC, died in 406 BC he’s occupation was playwrighting and wrote many novels such as Medea,, Hippolytus, Electra, and many more. Euripides also had two Spouses which names are Melite and Choerine, his parents were Mnesarchus and Cleito”.

Greece is one of the oldest group of innovators in the history of western civilization. Greek society inspired achievements that shaped the foundation of Western ancient civilization. They were sensible and daring enough to go into directions, no other civilization had tried to dwell into before. They went on to accomplish great feats in the arts, philosophy, science, architecture and many more. Although some of their ideas may have been discarded in due time, many of the ancient Greeks’ discoveries and inventions are still used today. One of the major discovery that the sun is in the center of solar system was once ignored, but later rediscovered and agreed upon. From cannons, to escapements, to plumbing, urban planning, wheelbarrow, showers, the first light house, the ancient suez canal and many more, the list of popular used ancient inventions and discoveries in no way is limited to a mere list, for there are many of them.

Aristotle was not just any person. He was one of the most distinguished and important Greek philosophers of all time. Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in the town of Stagira, Greece. His range of work was very broad, covering most of the sciences and many arts such as biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. He was the author of what became the foundation of both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after his death in 322 BCE and historic events such as enlightenment, Aristotle’s concepts still remain present in Western thinking and continue to be studied.

The Greeks made an enormous jump. It was the rebirth of Ancient learning, the Renaissance, which provided the base of today’s science and technology. It was the rediscovery of Hellenic thought, from Aquinas to the Humanists, which recovered and changed our civilization. The Greeks had demoted fantasy, escaped from arrogance, and were never tempted by blind faith. They wanted reasons; they

Eratosthenes was born in 276 B.C. in a Greek colony in Cyrene, a country in North Africa better known in the present day as Libya. He raised by modest parents, his mother’s name is not known, and his father’s name could be one of two that have been discovered, Aglaos or Ambrosios. Even though they were modest parents, they were somehow able to have enough money for an education for their son. They would have had to own land that was worth at least 20 minas (type of Athenian currency), and his parents would have been free citizens. He was a typical, curious baby and as he grew older, he asked hundreds of questions that no one could answer. He was extremely interested in the sky, because it was something that he could not reach up and touch. He wondered how what the distance between the sun and earth was and what the sun was made of, why there was wind, and why the stars moved. Like most young Greek boys, when Eratosthenes was about six, he began to go to school in the local gymnasium, where he learned reading, writing, mathematics, poetry, music and physical education. He was very strong in math but geography was by far his favourite subject. In his early years, he was given the nickname Beta, the second letter of the Greek alphabet, because he never came in first place (taken by Archimedes). Later in life, he got the nickname Pentathlos. This word meant an athlete that participated in 5 sporting events or to describe someone who was good at a variety of different

It was only after Alexander’s conquest of the Greek homeland that classical ideas were put under pressure by a changing political climate and social disruption, eventually causing the expanding Greek world to turn to pragmatism and realism. The ensuing Hellenistic period saw a move towards practical applications of scientific knowledge and art styles reflecting the more complex emotions familiar to Hellenistic Greeks. However, despite changing attitudes, the ingenuity and technical proficiency of Greek individuals was generally undiminished. In mathematics, for example, Euclid (365-300 BCE) wrote 13 groundbreaking books on geometry that continued to be used until the late 19th century and “virtually invented classical (Euclidean) geometry as we know it” (Mastin, pars. 3). Archimedes, a 3rd-century BCE mathematician from Syracuse, made significant practical advances in the field of physics, inventing the compound pulley and the Archimedean screw; he famously stated, “give me a fulcrum, and I’ll shift the Earth,” affirming his faith in applied science (Cary, 349). Early biologists and naturalists of the Hellenistic period increasingly sought applications in medicine, which vastly improved medical care (Cary, 351). Astronomy also saw advances in practical knowledge from figures such as Eratosthenes, who calculated the circumference of the Earth, and Hipparchus, who determined the length of the moon’s orbit to within one second (Violatti (a), pars. 9). Architecture, once held up