H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

The method of exhaustion Eudoxus .

George Mpantes www. mpantes. gr

mpantes on scribd

English:

Introduction .

After

time

the

mathematicians

of

Pythagoreans

classic

Greek

did not attempt to identify numbers with

geometrical quantities. The discovery of irrationals had cut the bridge between these
two entities, as for example they did not Know the number for the diagonal of a
square with side 1. But space is real and imminent, as numbers are located only in
our mind. Space makes our intuition to work, but

the philosophers of science

rejected the demand , favored by many Logical Positivists that meaningful terms in
science must have empirical meaning.
So with numbers we started to develop a evolutionarily new form of an
abstractve intuition, with an

imaginary supervision . The

continuum of real

numbers is captured with this form of intuition, which dominates in

calculus . The

fathers of the calculus struggled to displace from its foundations every reference to
geometric intuition, but it was mutated to new concepts, because it is impossible any
knowledge, without some images in the mind. We all have an image

for the

numerical continuum in our minds.

The Greeks went in the same direction with calculus, but only with the actual
geometrical intuition, as for them the numerical infinity was unreal. ..Their
premises are the dictates of sensory experience , much as Aristorles science may
be characterised as a glorification of common sense..Boyer So the two paths are
not conceptually identified. This is shown in the method of exhaustion, this Greek
geometrical model of the arithmetical concept of limit approach. They both models
can find e.g the area of the circle, but are connected as would be associated an
earth and an alien researcher.

Exhaustion lemma (Euclid X 1 Eudoxus):

"If we repeatedly subtract more than half from a quantity then the remaining quantity
will eventually be less than any preassigned value."

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

( Eudoxus was a man of excellent character and self control Aristotle, in Book 10 of the Nicomachean
Ethics,

The method of exhaustion

The approximation of a figure by a sequence of figures inside it is sometimes
called the method of exhaustion. This method provides a way to prove rigorously
that an area (or volume) A is equal to another area (or volume) B. The important point
of this method is that the sequence of approximations can be made so that the
difference between the original figure and the inscribed figures decreases by at least
half at each step of the sequence (lemma) as the inscribed figures are "exhausting"
the area we wish to determine. The proof works by assuming otherwise, and then
deriving a contradiction.
This form of contradiction known as reduction ad absurdum involves
assuming that the true area is greater than the inscribed figures, and proving that
assertion is false, and then assuming that it is less than the inscribed figures, and
proving that assertion false, too. So our assertion is true.
Archimedes exhausted the parabolic segment with successively smaller triangles.
With the method of exhaustion Greeks calculated

The area bounded by the intersection of a line and a parabola

The area of an ellipse

The volume of a sphere

The volume of a cylinder having a height equal to its diameter

The area bounded by one spiral rotation and a line

Use of the method of exhaustion also led to the successful evaluation of an

infinite geometric series (for the first time).

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

An example of the method of exhaustion Proposition Euclid XII,2

The ratio of the areas of two circles is as the ratio of the squares of their
diametres.
Call the circles A and B and their diameters c,d. we shall prove the theorem
by contradiction, that is A:B=c2:d2
Suppose that the statement is false. Then
there is some area S either greater or smaller
than A such that S:B=c2:d2 If A>S we inscribe a
square in A we can double the number of sides
by putting an isosceles triangle on top of each
side as the triangle KFE and repeat this so many
times as we like. It is clear that each time the area
of the added triangles will be more than half of the
remaining area between the circle A and the inscribed polygon. That is as we see in
the figure Triangle(FKE)=1/2(FESR)>1/2 (circular segment FKE)
Hence it is by the exhaustion lemma , possible to inscribe a polygon P in A
such that the area between A and P is less than the difference between A and S.
Thus P>S
Inscribe a similar polygon Q in B. it is from the similarity that P:Q=c2:d2,
hence P:Q=S:B and B:Q=S:P . Since Q os inscribed inB it is clear that B>Q, so
therefore S>P. But P was chosen so that P>S so we have arrived at a contradiction.
Hence the theorem holds.
The calculation of as the ratio area of circle/square of radius allowed
them to calculate the value reasonably accurately: thus for example ,Archimedes
used the areas of inscrided and circumscribed polygons to show that
223/71<<22/7

The

method

of

exhaustion

and

the

Calculus

The Greeks after discovery (via irrationals ) that there were no numbers for all
sizes, and the inability to creat new numbers, followed the mathematics of geometry.

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

They cold not proceed in the concepts of function, geometry coordinates, infinity,
continuity, or the limit and any identification of the exhaustion method with the
Calculus

ignores the decoupling of Greek mathematics with the deep study of

numbers.
The actual relationship between the two methods is what we see continuously
in the development of mathematics: generalization by abstraction. Mathematical
insights into abstract relationships have grown over thousand of years and they are
still being extended-and sometimes revised. Although they began in a concrete
experience of counting and measuring, they have come through many layers of
abstraction and now depend much more on internal logic than on mechanical
demonstration.
So the theory of calculus was the abstract generalization of the exhaustion
method. With the first we find any area or volume, with second only specific areas,
circle, parabola, sphere etc. Archimedes was not the father but the grandfather of
the integrals, the exhaustion of a size based on the lemma of exhaustion was not
considered as being literally carried out to an infinite number of steps , as we do in
passing to the limit , but in Greeks mind there was always a quantity the remainder
of the exhaustion, although this could be made as small as desired so that the
process never passed beyond clear intuitional comprehension.

They had no

developed the abstractive intuition of the numbering concepts, for them the infinity
was not real. Exhaustion is not an heuristic method, we dont find the area of a circle
but the relation of the areas of two circles. Archimedes carefully stated that he did
not believe in numbers so small that they behaved like zero. (infinitesimals of
Leibnitz) Centuries passed before anyone truly understood what he was being
careful about, even though the

development of infinitesimal heuristics in Europe

allowed mathematicians to produce lots of new theorems.

But it was Greeks
mathematicians

supreme geometrical insight that convinced

of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

that the method of

exhaustion might be developed into a universal calculus

So the picture seems complete: pure intuition, adhesion in geometry, and
method of exhaustion for some curvilinear areas, abstract intuition to which the
imagination involved, the numbers in the game, and the infinitesimal calculus for all
curvilinear areas.
Sources .

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

Foundations and fundamental concepts of Mathematics

Howard Eves
( , )
( , )
Richard Mankiewicz

()
The history of the Calculus (Carl Boyer) Dover
Everythig2 Internet

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H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

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H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

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H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

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mpantes on scribd

Foundations and fundamental concepts of Mathematics

Howard Eves
( , )
( , )
Richard Mankiewicz

()
The history of the Calculus (Carl Boyer) Dover
Everythig2 Internet
H
( , )

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

10

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In sixteenth century , newly rediscovered works on the calculation of surface areas volumes
and centres of gravity , which had been written by Archimedes, were printed in Italy and
circulated throughout Europe . These all were written on the method of exhaustion.

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

The greens are the of blue, the yellows the of greens e.t.c
The area of Pn

11

H or the method of exhaustion-Eudoxus

12

Archimedes located a point Bon the arc AC so that the line tangent to the parabola
at B is parallel to AC. This creates triangle ABC.

Proposition 2 P0
Circles are to one another as the squares on their diameters.
The method of exhaustion (methodus exhaustionibus, or mthode des anciens) is a
method of finding the area of a shape by inscribing inside it a sequence of polygons
whose areas converge to the area of the containing shape. If the sequence is
correctly constructed, the difference in area between the n-th polygon and the
containing shape will become arbitrarily small as n becomes large. As this difference
becomes arbitrarily small, the possible values for the area of the shape are
systematically "exhausted" by the lower bound areas successively established by the
sequence members.
The method of exhaustion typically required a form of proof by contradiction, known
as reductio ad absurdum. This amounts to finding an area of a region by first
comparing it to the area of a second region (which can be exhausted so that its
area becomes arbitrarily close to the true area). The proof involves assuming that the
true area is greater than the second area, and then proving that assertion false, and
then assuming that it is less than the second area, and proving that assertion false,
too.
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