Originally, each country had its own, and rather poorly reproducible, unit of luminous intensity; it was necessary to wait until 1909 to see a beginning of unification on the international level, when ... Continue reading
Eratosthenes (c. 276 – 194 BC) was born more than 2200 years ago in the Greek city of Cyrene, now a city in the North African country of Libya. (The Greek Empire surrounded much of the Mediterranean ... Continue reading
A circle is what you get if you take a straight line and bend it around so that its ends touch. You can demonstrate this by taking a piece of stiff wire and doing just that: bring the ends of the wire ... Continue reading
Some numbers are more special than others. According to Pythagoras (569 BC - 475 BC) and Euclid (325 BC - 265 BC), some are so special that they called them mystical or perfect numbers. The first ... Continue reading
