Heron the Mathematician

Heron, (also known as Hero) was a Greek mathematician. Hero’s major contributions to mathematics were his formula of square root, also his primary contribution to geometry was his writings and his findings. Hero also wrote many books. In this report I will be giving you information about Hero, such as: what he did during his life, (the little bit that scholars know), what some of his successes were, what books he wrote, and the importance of some of his books.

Hero was born in Egypt. Some authorities place his birthday early 150 B.C.E. in Ptolemaic, Egypt. While other scholars have dated his birth to be 250 C.E. in late Roman Empire. Nothing is really known about Hero’s life in Egypt, actually nothing is really known of Hero’s life at all. In the following paragraphs will be what we do know about Hero’s life, but we only know this because of some clues that he made in the 14 known books that he has written that have been found.

As a college student Hero spent most of his time in the Library at the University of Alexandria. He loved to be in the library, because of the series of gardens, the 40,000 volumes, and the 300,000 books. Hero was well strongly influenced by the writings of Ctesibius of Alexandria. He may have been a student of Ctesibius. When he became older he taught at the University of Alexandria. Hero taught mathematics, mechanics, and physical science. He wrote many books and he used them as text for his students, and manuals for technicians. Here are some of the books that he wrote:

As you can tell, his works ranged from Greek to Latin to Egyptian. Something interesting about one of his books, Metrica is it was lost until the end of the century. Scholars knew of its existence only threw one of his other books, Eutocuis. In 1894, historian Paul Tannery discovered a fragment of the book in Paris. In 1896, R. Schone in Constanitinpole found a copy. That is how Metrica was found. This book is the most famous book that Hero wrote. It consists of 3 books, which calculate area and volume, and their divisions.

Not only did Hero write books he is also famous for find the formula of the area of a triangle. Well finding the area of the triangle is not the only thing that he did, he also figured out the area of an orbitary quadrilaterial, and the area of a cyclic quadrilateral.

The first and most famous formula is the area of a triangle. The formula of a triangle may be Archimedes’s (the famous Greek inventor, but its presentation and popularization is credited to Hero. The formula is:

                        A=the square-root of s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)

The area (A) of the triangle can be computed if you know the length of one side of the triangle (a,b,c). The perimeter (2s) of the triangle is “a+b+c” with being the semiperimter.

The second formula that Hero came up with is useful for determining the area of an orbitary quadrilateral. The formula is:

                        A=the square-root of (s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d)-abcd cos to the second o  

This means a, b, c, and d are the sides of the quadrilateral, 2s is the perimeter (a + b + c + d), and o is half of the sum of 2 opposite angles.

The third formula is the area of a cyclic quadrilateral (which means a quadrilateral can be inscribed in a circle. The formula is:

                                    A= the square-root of (s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d)

Which means the A can be found from the length of the sides of he quadrilateral, where 2s is the perimeter, s is semiperimeter, and a, b, c, and d are the four sides.

Not only did Hero teach, write books, and discover these three formulas, but he also invented things. A few things that Hero invented were:

Hero’s works in math, and especially in mechanics revealed that he practiced by nature using ingenious meanings to attain his goals. Such as designing the steam engine and all of the other things that he invented. Hero also designed instruments used in daily life. Hero is credited as one of the earliest and most comprehensive and detailed recorders in the ancient technology. So even though we don’t know much about him now days he was well know in ancient days of Greek.

Since Hero was a scientist it was assumed that he studied all branched of learning. He studied especially math, mechanics, physics, optics, and applied science. It is said that Hero’s favorite area of math was, menstruation, the branch of geometry that deals with the measurements of length, area, and volume.  Some of Hero major talents were seeing the immediate and practical application of principles, writing, teaching, and inventing things.

In one of his books, Dioptra it mentions an eclipse of the moon visible from Alexandria, astronomers date that eclipse to be in 62 A.D., providing a clue of what Era Hero lived in. Scholars have estimated that Hero lived about 150 years. The scholars said that he taught until his death. So thoughout his life he wrote 14 books, invented many things that are use in daily life, found the formula for the area of a triangle, the area of an orbitary quadrilateral, and the formula for a cyclic quadrilateral. Hero also, taught, and could speak Greek, Latin, and English flowintly. Overall I would say that Hero had a fairly successful life. How about you? What do you think about Hero’s life? Would you enjoy what he did?

 

Works Cited

    “Hero of Alexandria.” Notable Mathematicians. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2002. Http://www.galenet. Com/servlet/BioRC, (September 3, 2002).

     Franceschetti, Donald R. Biographical Encyclopedia of Mathematicians. NY: Marshal Cavendish Corporation, 1999.

     Turnball, Herbert Western The Great Mathematicians. Barnes & Noble Inc. 1993.