c. 240-c. 180 B.C. Greek Mathematician The details of his life are virtually unknown, and Diocles is remembered almost entirely for a fragmentary manuscript entitled On Burning Mirrors. In it he discussed not only the physical problem referred to in...

fl. second century B.C. Greek mathematician who, according to Arabic tradition, discovered the parabolic burning mirror. Diocles discusses the theory of spherical and parabolic burning mirrors in his only extant work, On Burning Mirrors. However, this...

Diocles (ca. 240 BCE - ca. 180 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and...

THEIR FIELD MAY BE ARCANE, BUT THE BEAUTIFUL MINDS OF MATHS ARE PROVING TO BE POTENT FACTORS IN BUSINESS Mathematicians have a bad rap, but they don't exactly help themselves, do they? Consider this from Terence Tao, Australia's pre-eminent mathematician, as he recently...

Are all children potential mathematicians? What can we do as teachers to help our students appreciate what mathematics is and what mathematicians do? As current president of the Mathematical Association of America, I field many questions about the learning and teaching of mathematics...