List of Greek inventions and discoveries

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This article is a list of major inventions and scientific and mathematical discoveries by Greek people from antiquity through the present day.

Inventions

• Catapult - The historian Diodorus Siculus mentions the invention of a mechanical arrow-firing catapult (katapeltikon) by a Greek task force in 399 BC.*
• Pap smear - A test for cervical cancer developed by the Greek physician George Papanikolaou in 1923.

Discoveries

Mathematics

• Conic sections - First developed by Menaechmus in the 4th century BC, but the most significant contribution is by Apollonius of Perga in the 3rd century BC.
• Exhaustion, method of - Formalized by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the early 4th century BC, used by Archimedes to calculate the value of Pi and the area under a curve.
• Proof, mathematical - The mathematical proof was a product of Greek mathematics, evolving gradually to reach the method still used today in Euclid's Elements around 300 BC.
• Sieve of Eratosthenes - Developed by Eratosthenes in the 3rd century BC to calculate prime numbers.

Natural Sciences

• Circumference of the Earth - The circumference of the Earth was first calculated by Eratosthenes of Cyrene in 240 BC, with an error of 2% to 15% (depending on the definition of a stadion).
• Heliocentrism - The notion that the Earth and planets revolves around the Sun was first proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC.
• Spherical Earth - The concept of a spherical Earth first appears in the writings of the Pythagoreans around the 6th century BC.

See also

• Greek mathematics
• Greek astronomy
• Ancient Greek technology
• List of Byzantine inventions