"Hippocrates of Chios (about 430 B.C.), a talented mathematician, but otherwise slow and stupid, was the first to show that the [duplication of the cube] problem could be reduced to finding two mean proportionals between a given line and another twice as long. For, in the proportion a:x=x:y=y:2a, since x2=ay and y2=2ax and x4=a2y2, we have x4=2 a3x and x3=2a3. But he failed to find the two mean proportionals. His attempt to square the circle was also a failure; for though he made himself celebrated by squaring a lune, he committed an error in attempting to apply this result to the squaring of the circle."
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p. 25.
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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