What was Hippocrates of Chios known for?
Hippocrates of Chios, (flourished c. 440 bc), Greek geometer who compiled the first known work on the elements of geometry nearly a century before Euclid. Although the work is no longer extant, Euclid may have used it as a model for his Elements.
Why did Hippocrates of Chios Travelled to Athens?
He travelled to Athens to seek justice. He settled in Athens and taught geometry, and made novel contributions to geometry and astronomy. He died around 410 BC in Athens. He should not be confused with Hippocrates of Kos, the doctor and originator of the Hippocratic Oath, who lived at the same time.
What did Hippocrates teach?
Hippocrates of Kos was a Greek physician who lived from about 460 B.C. to 375 B.C. At a time when most people attributed sickness to superstition and the wrath of the gods, Hippocrates taught that all forms of illness had a natural cause.
What did Hippocrates of Chios do for a living?
Hippocrates of Chios taught in Athens and worked on the classical problems of squaring the circle and duplicating the cube. Little is known of his life but he is reported to have been an excellent geometer who, in other respects, was stupid and lacking in sense. Some claim that he was defrauded of a large sum of money because of his naiveté.
What did Hippocrates do when he went to Athens?
After some misadventures (he was robbed by either pirates or fraudulent customs officials) he went to Athens, possibly for litigation, where he became a leading mathematician. On Chios, Hippocrates may have been a pupil of the mathematician and astronomer Oenopides of Chios.
How did Hippocrates show that a cube can be doubled?
Hippocrates also showed that a cube can be doubled if two mean proportionals can be determined between a number and its double. This had a major influence on attempts to duplicate the cube, all efforts after this being directed towards the mean proportionals problem.
How did Hippocrates contribute to the field of mathematics?
Hippocrates is believed to have originated the use of letters to refer to the geometric points and figures in a proposition, e.g., “triangle ABC” for a triangle with vertices at points A, B, and C. Two other contributions by Hippocrates in the field of mathematics are noteworthy.