ABSTRACT
Greek science had its beginning in the idea of similar triangles attributed to Thales. This book contains, in its perfected state, the theory which we today call the theory of real numbers. After the destruction of Greek civilization this theory was lost, even though we always possessed Euclid, simply because no one could understand the state of mind to which it corresponded. In the following period of Greek Science, Ptolemy reproduced Eudoxus' system in a much cruder form, Apollonius continued Menaechmus' discoveries concerning conics and Archimedes continued those of Eudoxus on the subject of integration. Archimedes founded the science of physics by elaborating one of its branches, that is, hydrostatics. He constructed it in a purely geometric manner and without the least mixture of empiricism. Almost nothing is known about the fundamentals of chemistry as understood in ancient times, except that in Plato there is a theory of the four elements founded upon proportion.
