Link to Thales' page

Thales
                 

Link to Pythagoras' page

Pythagoras
                 

Link to Zeno page

Zeno
                 

Link to Euclid page

Euclid
                 

Link to Eratosthenes' page

Eratosthenes
                 

Link to Archimedes' page

Archimedes

Zeno of Elea

495 – 435 BC

A philosopher and mathematician, Zeno was particularly known for his four paradoxes Dichotomy, Achilles, Arrow, and Stadium. These paradoxes relate to ideas about continuity and infinity. Zeno was a student and friend of the philosopher Parmenides, and spent most of his life defending the writings of his teacher. He made no further contributions to Parmenides’ work, but wrote one book containing forty paradoxes, including the four mentioned above. 

These paradoxes had a great influence on the development of mathematics and were particularly important in the development of ideas about infinitesimals.

The arguments of Zeno can be sorted in to two groups. The first contains paradoxes against multiplicity. The second group concentrates on motion. The element of time is introduced and shown to be a sum of moments as a line is a sum of points.

Multiplicity page      Motion page      Greek Mathematics home page