Characters from Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics

Character Descriptions

This section provides a short description of all the major characters in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.

Characters

Archimedes of Syracuse - This mathematician's great theorem was chosen by Dunham as the subject of a chapter on estimation of the area of a circle and the value of π. Using only the rudimentary arithmetic available at the time, he calculates π correctly to 2 decimal places by estimating it to be between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.

Euclid - This mathematician's book becomes one of the most studied and widely-dispersed math texts ever, and it establishes him as the preeminent mathematician of his day.

HIppocrates of Chios - This individual is...
(read more)