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( Pappus of Alexandria)
Pappus of Alexandria (Greek ??pp?? ? ??e?a?d?e??) (c. 290 – c. 350) was one of the last great Greek mathematicians of antiquity, known for his Synagoge or Collection (c. 340), and for Pappus's Theorem in projective geometry. Nothing is known of his life, except (from his own writings) that he had a son named Hermodorus, and was a teacher in Alexandria.[1] Pappus flourished in the 4th century A.D. In a period of general stagnation in mathematical studies, he stands out as a remarkable exception. How far he was above his contemporaries, how little appreciated or understood by them, is shown by the absence of references to him in other Greek writers, and by the fact that his work had no effect in arresting the decay of mathematical science. In this respect the fate of Pappus strikingly resembles that of Diophantus. In his extant writings, Pappus gives no indication of the date of the authors whose treatises he makes use of, or of the time (but see below) at which he himself wrote. If we had no other information, we should only know that he was later than Ptolemy (died c. 168 AD), whom he quotes, and earlier than Proclus (born c. 411 AD), who quotes him. The Suda (a 10th century Byzantine Greek encyclopedia of known inaccuracy) states that Pappus was of the same age as Theon of Alexandria, who flourished in the reign of Emperor Theodosius I (372–395 AD). A different date is given by a marginal note to a late 10th century manuscript (a copy of a chronological table by the same Theon), which states, next to an entry on Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284–305 AD), that "at that time wrote Pappus".
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