Hellenistic science was the beginning steps toward what we know about the universe and the world around us today. The Hellenistic age itself allowed for Greek tradition, culture, and language to advance beyond Greece and into the world. The Hellenistic empires contributed in the combining of the societies and economies in the outside regions. The sciences that received the uppermost attention in the Hellenistic Age were medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geography, and physics. The scientists that will be discussed are Archimedes, Euclid, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy of Alexandria, and Hippocrates. Each of these great men has supplied Western Civilization with numerous discoveries of the world around us.
Before the 3rd century BCE,
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One of these distinguished individuals is Eratosthenes. He was born in Cyrene in 276 BCE. Eratosthenes spent most of his life as chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria. Mathematical geography is one of his findings that he well known for. From this discovery, he calculated a circumference of the earth to be 250,000 stadia, or 25,000 miles. “He knew that the circumference of Earth constituted a circle of 360 degrees; so 7.12 (or 7.2, to divide 360 evenly by 50) degrees would be about one-fiftieth of the circumference.” From this information, he could set up an equation to find the circumference of the …show more content…
The Hippocratic tradition was based on the semi mythical figure Hippocrates. Hippocrates was born on the island, Kos, during the fifth century. He developed the theory of humors, which was what most doctors believed that every human carried 4 humors. These humors were blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. The perfect balance of these showed signs of good health. “A diagnosis of a particular excess or deficiency was dealt with by an empirically deduced effective counter measure. Typically, this involved the prescription of a particular counter-acting agent, for example citrus juice or fruit.” Hippocrates is generally perceived as the father of medicine for his contribution to the