Talk:Apollonius of Perga

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Conic sections small.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

The times of Apollonius

To say that "Apollonius lived toward the end of the hellenistic period" seems to me misleading. The hellenistic period goes from the rise of Alexander to the death of Cleopatra. Therefore Apollonius was right in the middle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.28.55.45 (talk) 03:52, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

St. John's

Do we really want so much about St. John's College in an article on Apollonius? E.g., do we need to know that they lost their accreditation in 1936? I'm talking about this passage:

Heath's work is indispensable. He taught throughout the early 20th century, passing away in 1940, but meanwhile another point of view was developing. St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe), which had been a military school since colonial times, preceding the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, to which it is adjacent, in 1936 lost its accreditation and was on the brink of bankruptcy. In desperation the board summoned Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan from the University of Chicago, where they had been developing a new theoretical program for instruction of the Classics. Leaping at the opportunity, in 1937 they instituted the “new program” at St. John's, later dubbed the Great Books program, a fixed curriculum that would teach the works of select key contributors to the culture of western civilization. At St. John's, Apollonius came to be taught as himself, not as some adjunct to analytic geometry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Baez (talk • contribs) 20:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 25 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Escalara2019. Peer reviewers: Proc1996.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:32, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps Conics should be split into a new article?

As one of the most historically important mathematics books, it seems to me like Conics deserves its own article, just as we have separate articles for Euclid and Elements. It's good to have a solid summary here, but at some level of detail it starts to distract from the subject of Apollonius himself, so having that topic hosted as a section here makes it harder to add material about individual important theorems within, its historical influence, etc. that starts to seem out of scope for an article about the person of Apollonius. –jacobolus (t) 04:59, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

This strikes me as a good idea, as well.

I'm a relative newcomer to Wikipedia, so if I were to try it, how would you recommend that I learn how to do that properly? RowanElder (talk) 18:08, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

See WP:PROPERSPLIT. I think this split is uncontroversial enough that someone could just go for it, without making a formal proposal.

Both of the page titles Apollonius' Conics and Conics already exist as redirects to the appropriate section of this article, so the thing to do would be to pick one of them (I'd probably go for the former name, which is more explicit), cut/paste the material about Conics from this article into there, including any relevant material from § Sources, § Further Reading, and § External links (some may be relevant to both articles). Use an edit summary such as: Contents [[WP:SPLIT]] from [[Apollonius of Perga]]; please see its history for attribution.

Next, write a slimmed down summary and leave it behind at this article under § Conics, using the {{main}} template at the top linking to the new article. I'd make the summary here longer than usual for such a section, since Conics is so important to the topic of Apollonius. For this one, use an edit summary along the lines of: Conics section [[WP:SPLIT]] to [[Apollonius' Conics]], leaving a summary.

All of the redirects Conics, On Conic Sections, and Conics (Apollonius) should then be changed to point at the new article. –jacobolus (t) 18:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, this is clear. I'll give it a shot before long. RowanElder (talk) 02:08, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I hadn't forgotten this, but other work, particularly at Rate of convergence and Series (mathematics) took precedence over this for me in the short term. Then more recently I decided to stop working on mathematics pages on Wikipedia, so I no longer plan to do this. RowanElder (talk) 19:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

That's fine. Wikipedia is a volunteer service. You are not compelled to do any particular work here, and you can take a break or walk away at any time. We have no deadline and no one is depending on changes. If anyone else wants to try this split, it's still a good idea. Or I might sometime feel motivated to tackle it (but not today). –jacobolus (t) 23:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I did not think I was compelled and I didn't write that because I felt I might be. It's just a notice of changed intent.

I have little idea what implicit psychological model could make it look as if I felt I was feeling compelled. It feels creepy to be misread that way though I don't doubt you mean well. RowanElder (talk) 00:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

All the best. –jacobolus (t) 02:28, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Though you deleted your original reply -- something that I guess I should get used to -- I am still going to reply.

I didn't think I needed to explain, just that it would be polite. I didn't apologize.

I didn't mean more by "implicit psychological model" than "model of mind by which one infers intent from writing." You inferred intent from my writing, so in that sense you had an implicit psychological model. RowanElder (talk) 02:30, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Astrolabe

The Astrolabe article mentions Apollonius as the inventor of the instrument. But no mention of it here. Could maybe someone add it? Thanks. 2600:1700:1C64:8240:3D5F:3F0D:1558:A2A8 (talk) 07:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

There's an ongoing discussion about the early history of astrolabes at talk:astrolabe. See also Stereographic projection § History. The only evidence that Apollonius had anything to do with them is circumstantial: the theorem that the stereographic projection maps circles on the plane to circles on the sphere relies on a related theorem which can be found in Conics. Any attribution of the stereographic projection or planar astrolabe to Apollonius is highly speculative. –jacobolus (t) 13:07, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Double cone

Double cone is referred to but not defined 24.192.101.186 (talk) 13:04, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

If you click the immediately preceding wiki-link cone you can see some discussion (albeit not great) about double cones. –jacobolus (t) 14:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)