Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

He was the first to bring mechanics to a system by applying mathematical principles; he also first

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employed mechanical motion in a geometrical construction, namely, when he tried, by means of a section of a half-cylinder, to find two mean proportionals in order to duplicate the cube.[*](Cf. T. L. Heath, History of Greek Mathematics, i. 246-249.) In geometry, too, he was the first to discover the cube, as Plato says in the Republic.[*](528 b.)