The quadrature of the circle discovered ... / Submitted to the consideration of the Royal Society.

  • Parsey, Arthur, 1791-1857.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The quadrature of the circle discovered ... / Submitted to the consideration of the Royal Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    QUADRATURE OF THE CIRCLE. In the month of July last my attention was first drawn to this important question. During a temporary indisposition, and endeavouring in vain to find some alleviation from repose on a sofa, I opened a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, where the circle and the quadrature are thus described :— 44 A circle is equal to a triangle, the base of which is equal to the periphery, and its altitude to its radius, circles, therefore, are in a ratio compounded of the periphries and the radii. 46 Archimedes finds the proportion of 7 to 22; Wolsius finds it as 10000000000000000 to 31415926535897902, and the learned Mr. Machin has carried it to one hundred places, as follows:—if the diameter of a circle be 1, the circumference will be 3,14159,26535,89793,23846, &c.; but the ratios generally used in practice are that of Archi¬ medes, and the following; as 106 to 133, as 113 to 355, as 1702 to 5347, as 1815 to 5702, as 1 to 3, 14159. 44 The quadrature of the circle, or the manner of making a square, whose surface is perfectly and geometrically equal to that of a circle, is a problem that has employed the geo¬ metricians of all ages. 44 Many maintain it to be impossible: Des Cartes, in a 2