![]() ![]() This mention of the devices by the later writer and orator Cicero (l. At least one of these devices is described as a bronze sphere which, when turned, showed the planetary positions and how they revolved around the earth (as the earth was understood as the center of the universe at that time). (Livingstone, 125)Īrchimedes is said to have invented astronomical devices which could identify the positions and motions of the sun, moon, and planets. It also contains the important reference to the heliocentric theory of the universe put forward by Aristarchus of Samos in a book of 'hypotheses', as well as historical details of previous attempts to measure the size of the earth and to give the sizes and distances of the sun and moon. The Sandreckoner is remarkable for the development in it of a system for expressing very large numbers by orders and periods based on powers of myriad-myriads. The work is best known for preserving the heliocentric model proposed by the astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (l. The title comes from his attempt to determine how many grains of sand would fill the universe and, to do this, he needed to know how large the universe was. ![]() Archimedes is said to have written a number of works on astronomy, alluded to by later writers, but none of these have survived except his Sand-Reckoner, which calculated the size of the universe. ![]() It is likely that both Conon and Eratosthenes influenced Archimedes in the disciplines of mathematics and astronomy, but any suggestion on how great that influence may have been is speculative. The details of these relationships are unknown, but Archimedes admired Eratosthenes well enough to dedicate his work The Method to him. Conon was a well-respected astronomer and mathematician, and Eratosthenes was head of the Library of Alexandria and a polymath who first calculated the circumference of the earth. In Alexandria, he became friends with Eratosthenes of Cyrene and Conon of Samos, both leading intellectuals of the city. At some point, his father sent him to Alexandria which, at that time, was developing as an intellectual center, rivaling Athens, under the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE). ![]()
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