"(370 B.C.) is probably the one who placed the theory of exhaustion on a scientific basis. ...[In] Book V of Euclid's Elements (the book on proportion)... it is thought that the fundamental principles laid down are his. The fourth definition... is: "Magnitudes are said to have a ratio to one another which are capable, when multiplied, of exceeding one another," and this includes the relation of a finite magnitude to a magnitude of the same kind which is either infinitely great or infinitely small. ...According to Archimedes, this method had already been applied by Democritus (c. 400 B.C.) to the mensuration of both the cone and the cylinder."

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