c. 262-c. 190 B.C.

Greek Mathematician

Though he is known as "The Great Geometer," even that title fails to do justice to Apollonius of Perga and his career. His Conics laid the foundations for Newtonian astronomy, ballistics, rocketry, and space science—all 2,000 or more years in the future when he wrote—with its discussion of conic sections, which describe the shape formed by the path of projectiles. Along the way, Apollonius developed his own counting system for large numbers, and put forth a new mathematical worldview that opened the way for the infinitesimal calculus many centuries later.

Born in the town of Perga in southern Asia Minor (now Turkey), Apollonius later studied Euclidean geometry in Alexandria. He also visited Pergamum and Ephesus, both important cities in Asia Minor. In addition to the Conics, he wrote a number of other works, all of which have...