List of Greek inventions and discoveries

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This article is a list of major inventions and scientific and mathematical discoveries by Greek people from antiquity through the present day.

Inventions

Catapult - The historian Diodorus Siculus mentions the invention of a mechanical arrow-firing catapult (katapeltikon) by a Greek task force in 399 BC.* Campbell, Duncan (2003), Greek and Roman Artillery 399 BC – AD 363, Oxford: Osprey, p. 3, ISBN 1-84176-634-8

Pap smear - A test for cervical cancer developed by the Greek physician George Papanikolaou in 1923.^[1]

Conic sections - First developed by Menaechmus in the 4th century BC, but the most significant contribution is by Apollonius of Perga in the 3rd century BC.^[2]
Exhaustion, method of - Formalized by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the early 4th century BC, used by Archimedes to calculate the value of Pi and the area under a curve.^[3]
Proof, mathematical - The mathematical proof was a product of Greek mathematics, evolving gradually to reach the method still used today in Euclid's Elements around 300 BC.^[4]
Sieve of Eratosthenes - Developed by Eratosthenes in the 3rd century BC to calculate prime numbers.^[5]

Circumference of the Earth - The circumference of the Earth was first calculated by Eratosthenes of Cyrene in 240 BC, with an error of 2% to 15% (depending on the definition of a stadion).^[6]
Heliocentrism - The notion that the Earth and planets revolves around the Sun was first proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC.^[7]
Spherical Earth - The concept of a spherical Earth first appears in the writings of the Pythagoreans around the 6th century BC.^[8]

↑ Diamantis A, Magiorkinis E, Androutsos G., What's in a name? Evidence that Papanicolaou, not Babes, deserves credit for the Pap test., Diagn Cytopathol. 2010 Jul;38(7):473-6. doi:10.1002/dc.21226
↑ Boyer, C.B.; Ute Merzbach (1991), A History of Mathematics (2nd ed.), New York: Wiley, p. 145, ISBN 0-471-09763-2
↑ Boyer, C.B.; Ute Merzbach (1991), A History of Mathematics (2nd ed.), New York: Wiley, p. 92, ISBN 0-471-09763-2
↑ Boyer, C.B.; Ute Merzbach (1991), A History of Mathematics (2nd ed.), New York: Wiley, p. 104, ISBN 0-471-09763-2
↑ Boyer, C.B.; Ute Merzbach (1991), A History of Mathematics (2nd ed.), New York: Wiley, p. 161, ISBN 0-471-09763-2
↑ Van Helden, Albert (1985). Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley. University of Chicago Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 0-226-84882-5.
↑ C. M. Linton (12 August 2004). From Eudoxus to Einstein: A History of Mathematical Astronomy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-1-139-45379-0.
↑ Dicks, D.R. (1970). Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. pp. 72–198. ISBN 978-0-8014-0561-7.

Inventions and discoveries

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