Person: Zenodorus
Zenodorus was a Greek mathematician who studied the area of a figure with a fixed perimeter and the volume of a solid figure with fixed surface.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Toomer notes that his translation of 'when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was introduced to us' could, perhaps, be translated 'when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was appointed to a teaching position there'.
- Before the discovery of the Arabic text of Diocles' On burning mirrors, Zenodorus was known to us mainly because of references to his treatise On isometric figures which is lost.
- This biography speaks of Zenodorus as a friend of Philonides and, although complete certainty is impossible, we can be confident that this reference to Zenodorus is to the mathematician described in this article.
- Two visits by Zenodorus to Athens are described in the biography.
- Despite the loss of Zenodorus's treatise On isometric figures, we do know something of the results which it contained since Theon of Alexandria quotes a number of propositions from Zenodorus's work when he is giving his commentary on Ptolemy's Syntaxis.
- Pappus also made use of Zenodorus's On isometric figures in Book V of his own work and in fact a comparison with what Theon of Alexandria has presented shows that Pappus followed Zenodorus's presentation rather closely.
- In On isometric figures Zenodorus himself follows the style of Euclid and Archimedes quite closely and he refers to results of Archimedes from his treatise Measurement of a circle.
- Zenodorus studied the area of a figure with a fixed perimeter and the volume of a solid figure with fixed surface.
- To do this Zenodorus makes use of Archimedes result that the area of a circle is equal to that of a right-angled triangle of perpendicular side equal to the radius of the circle and base equal to the length of the circumference of the circle.
Born about 200 BC, Athens, Greece. Died about 140 BC, Greece.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Ancient Greek, Astronomy, Origin Greece
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
