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Salient. An organ of student opinion at Victoria University, Wellington. Vol. 23. No. 7. Monday, August 8, 1960.

"Archimedean Jugglery"

"Archimedean Jugglery"

(or 'Equilibrium & Exhaustion')

A talk with this intriguing title was recently delivered to the Maths and Physics Society by Mr D. Patterson, of the Mathematics Department. Mr Patterson pointed out to his audience that the theorems of Euclid, as we know them today, were not first discovered in their present form. Little was known of the methods by which the Greeks first proved these theorems, however, until the "method" of Archimedes was discovered. Archimedes possessed amazing powers of deduction which enabled him to postulate his theorems. To demonstrate just how Archimedes went about proving a theorem, Mr Patterson showed, by Archimedes's methods, the volume of a sphere. This explained the subtitle to the talk, for the two methods were labelled the "method of equilibrium" and "the method of exhaustion."

Mr Patterson kept his audience amused and entertained for an hour with his geometrical jugglery, and all left with a healthy respect for Greek geometries.

—P.G.