Zenodorus biography
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Zenodorus (mathematician)
Ancient Greek mathematician (c. 200–140 BC)
Zenodorus (Greek: Ζηνόδωρος; c. 200 – c. 140 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician.
Life and work
[edit]Little is known about the life of Zenodorus, although he may have befriended Philonides and made two trips to Athens, as described in Philonides' biography. From the style of his writing, it is known that he lived not much later than Archimedes.
He is mentioned in Diocles' On Burning Mirrors:
And when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was introduced to us, he asked us how to find a mirror surface such that when it is placed facing the sun the rays reflected from it meet a point and thus cause burning.[1]
Zenodorus is known for authoring the treatise On isoperimetric figures, now lost. Many of its propositions are known from Theon of Alexandria's commentary on Ptolemy's Syntaxis. In his On isoperimetric figures, Zenodorus studies the areas and perimeters of dif
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Zenodorus
Biography
We know little of Zenodorus's life but he is mentioned in the Arabic translation of Diocles' On burning mirrors where it is stated [3]:-And when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was introduced to us, he asked us how to find a mirror surface such that when it is placed facing the sun the rays reflected from it meet a point and thus cause burning.Toomer notes that his translation of 'when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was introduced to us' could, perhaps, be translated 'when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was appointed to a teaching position there'.
Before the discovery of the Arabic text of Diocles' On burning mirrors, Zenodorus was known to us mainly because of references to his treatise On isometric figures which is lost. There is another interesting source of information however. When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, Herculaneum together with Pompeii and Stabiae, was destroyed. Herculaneum w
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Zenodorus (son of Lysanias)
Zenodorus (Greek: Ζηνόδωρος) was the ruler of a small principality in the vicinity of Damascus described by Josephus as the "house of Lysanias", 23-20 BCE.
Biography
[edit]Though Josephus does not seem to know it, Zenodorus was actually the son of Lysanias, for a funerary inscription found at Heliopolis (Baalbek) was dedicated to "Zenodorus the son of Lysanias the tetrarch" (of Iturea).[1] He gained control, on lease we are told, of some of his father's territory (confiscated when his father had been executed bygd Mark Antony), but it is not clear exactly what his territory was for Josephus only gives us upplysning concerning areas south of Damascus (Ulatha and Paneas, both, we are told, west of Trachonitis), while the center of Lysanias's realm was north-west of Damascus. He may in fact have held the lease on his territories as far back as the time of his father's execution (36 BCE), doing the work of administering the region while ini