GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



total destruction of all cultural achievement in the thousand 

 years which followed. 



Before this period of desolation commenced, three great 

 figures appeared: Euclid, Archimedes, and Hipparchus. 



EUCLID 



330 {^)-28o B.C. 



Euclid appears as the first comprehensive investigator of 

 space, the three-dimensional space with all its properties, 

 in which we live, and of the forms and structures which are 

 possible in it. He founded all the essentials of geometry. 

 But he is at the same time also the founder of elementary 

 mathematics. He had already demonstrated the propagation 

 of light in straight lines, and discovered the law of the 

 formation of images in mirrors. Much of this, it is true, can 

 only be surmised from relics of his works of doubtful 

 authenticity; very little is known to us regarding his life, and 

 no portrait of him exists. Little more can therefore be said 

 here. 



ARCHIMEDES 



287-212 B.C. 



Almost the same is true of Archimedes, but his writings 

 have been better preserved. They tell us that he had already 

 formed a conception of force for cases in which it does not 

 produce motion, that is to say, where there is equilibrium 

 between several forces (statics). He laid down the conditions 

 of this equilibrium when the forces act upon rigid bodies, 



