It basically states that a text that was long thought to be lost has been tracked down. The text is written by the famous ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. If what they are saying is right, the guy was centuries ahead of his time.
Apparently, he took the first steps toward discovering calculus, and he came to terms with infinity. I always thought this had happened more around post-1500’s, not that long ago.
Is this text geniune? Are they 100% sure of it’s findings? And what do we know of it today?
Note that it says “steps toward calculus”. Many ancient Mathematicians had figured out how to calculate the area or volume of objects using methods of infinite slicing and summation. But they were special purpose.
Calculus is a general purpose method.
It’s similar to the difference between knowing the roots of 2x[sup]2[/sup]-3x-4 and knowing how to derive the formula for roots of quadratic equations. (Only at a much more sophisticated level.)
Most certainly. The BBC Horizon piece is a bit hand-waving, but this American Mathematical Society site on ‘The Method’ explains in a bit more detail. Despite the lack of algebra, it could be viewed as a ‘proto-calculus’ in its concept of summing the volume of an object as a series of infinitesimal slices.