From Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
The greatest mathematician of antiquity; born in Syracuse about 287
. He is said to have made use of an Arabic translation of Costa ben Luca, though Arabic bibliographers know nothing of such a translation. An unknown author—whom Steinschneider surmises to have been the same Kalonymus—translated κύκλου μάθησις under the title
, from the Arabic of Thabit ibn Kurrah (the Hebrew title is to be corrected to
, which means "extension," and corresponds exactly to the Arabic "MasaḦah").
Abraham bar Ḥiyyah shows a perfect knowledge of the theories of Archimedes in his "Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences" (compare Steinschneider, "Hebr. Bibl." vii. 92); and the same is true of Abraham ibn Ezra, in his astronomical work "Reshit Ḥokmah."
Categories: [Jewish encyclopedia 1906]
ZWI signed: