ARCHIMEDES:

The greatest mathematician of antiquity; born in Syracuse about 287 B.C. His influence on Jewish literature was not extensive. Only two of his works have come down to us in a Hebrew translation. Kalonymusben Kalonymus (after 1306) twice turned the treatise "On Conoids and Spheroids" into Hebrew, under the title . He is said to have made use of an Arabic translation of Costa ben Luca, though Arabic bibliographers know nothing of such a translation. An unknown author—whom Steinschneider surmises to have been the same Kalonymus—translated κύκλου μάθησις under the title , from the Arabic of Thabit ibn Kurrah (the Hebrew title is to be corrected to , which means "extension," and corresponds exactly to the Arabic "MasaḦah").

Archers as Body-Guard of Darius.(From Maspero, "Passing of the Empires.")

Abraham bar Ḥiyyah shows a perfect knowledge of the theories of Archimedes in his "Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences" (compare Steinschneider, "Hebr. Bibl." vii. 92); and the same is true of Abraham ibn Ezra, in his astronomical work "Reshit Ḥokmah."

Bibliography:
  • Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. § 310;
  • Z. D. M. G. l. 172 et seq.
G. I. Br.
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