Template talk:Greek mathematics

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Why the random bold text on some names? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 02:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing random about the bold text. The names that are in bold are the names of those mathematicians who for some reason stand out among the rest. So since Archimedes, Apollonius, Euclid, Pythagoras, Thales, etc stand out more than the other mathematicians, their names are in bold. selfworm^Talk) 07:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, selfworm. I know that Aratus strictly speaking was not a mathematician in a modern sense. In this table there are a lot of names, for which we can also say that they were not mathematicians in a same manner. For example - Anaxagoras and other Greek philosophers. This sentence: "Although Aratus was ignorant of astronomy, his poem attracted the favorable notice of 18 distinguished specialists, such as Hipparchus, who wrote a commentary upon it." says something about Aratus' role in a history of math - I guess. --xJaM (talk) 22:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello xJam, the section that says "mathematicians" should only include people who were mathematicians. These mathematicians need not be only mathematicians, for instance, it is perfectly acceptable if one of them is a mathematician and astronomer, since then he/she is a mathematician. But if you want to then we can start a "Non-mathematicians" section directly below the "mathematicians" section, which should solve our problem. Take care. selfworm^Talk) 23:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I do understand that one can also be something else than just a mathematician. I've just said that, strictly speaking, for instance, Anaxagoras, who is listed (and some more), was not a mathematician at all. So that's why I've added Aratus, because, as the mentioned sentence also says, he made a great influence, specially via Eudoxus to Hipparchus. And Hipparchus is known to be a father of trigonometry. And the only surviving Hipparchus' work Toon Aratou kai Eudoxou Fainomenoon exegesis was a commentary about Aratus' Fainomena, which deals about star positions and their coordinates. Perhaps we can make another type of text for such persons - let say italic, instead of proposed non-mathematicians section. Another option is to list such persons at existent section of "Influences", but, as I understand, here are listed mathematics, which were non-Greek. --xJaM (talk) 12:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aratus and Pytheas

And so the reason that Aratus and Pytheas have now been added to this template is? Singinglemon (talk) 15:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)