"Archimedes is the author of the first sound knowledge on mechanics. Archytas, Aristotle, and others attempted to form the known mechanical truths into a science, but failed. Aristotle knew the property of the lever, but could not establish its true mathematical theory. The radical and fatal defect in the speculations of the Greeks, says Whewell, was "that though they had in their possession facts and ideas, the ideas were not distinct and appropriate to the facts." For instance, Aristotle asserted that when a body at the end of a lever is moving, it may be considered as having two motions; one in the direction of the tangent and one in the direction of the radius; the former motion is, he says, according to nature, the latter contrary to nature. These inappropriate notions of 'natural' and 'unnatural' motions, together with the habits of thought which dictated these speculations, made the perception of the true grounds of mechanical properties impossible. It seems strange that even after Archimedes had entered upon the right path, this science should have remained absolutely stationary till the time of Galileo -- a period of nearly two thousand years."
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_History_of_Mathematics
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A History of Mathematics
A History of Mathematics by Florian Cajori was the first popular history of mathematics written in the United States. It was published in 1893.
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