Archimedes. Several aspects of his life and era. Edited by Zdeněk Halas (Q2865054)

This collection is based on papers presented at a conference in Plzeň, Czech Republic in 2011. The authors report the contents of several works by Archimedes and their reception in the world of mathematics and in the Czech cultural milieu. The book also introduces new findings based on the restoration of the Archimedes Palimpsest in the Walters Museum in Baltimore and its new reading by \textit{R. Netz} et al. in [The Archimedes Palimpsest. Volume 1: Catalogue and commentary. Volume 2: Images and transcriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2011; Zbl 1227.01003)].NEWLINENEWLINE J. Bečvář opens the volume with a brief summary of traditional lore about Archimedes from Plutarch, set into the context of his known mathematical work. M. Bečvářová charts the transmission of Archimedes' texts and looks closely at the Czech translations, most of them published in 1903--1906 by young high school teachers of mathematics in their schools' annual reports. The ``cattle problem'', also attributed to Archimedes, received special attention and was translated independently three times throughout the twentieth century. J. Bečvář describes the reasoning in Archimedes' treatises \textit{Measurement of the circle} and \textit{Sand reckoner}. Z. Halas describes Archimedes' most influential work \textit{The method}, including the convoluted history of the discovery, disappearance, rediscovery and modern reading of Archimedes' Palimpsest where it was recorded. Z. Halas also introduces and translates the work \textit{Stomachion} into Czech, dealing with a geometrical puzzle and preserved in an Arabic fragment and a different Greek fragment also recorded in Archimedes' Palimpsest.NEWLINENEWLINE The volume also includes three papers loosely connected to Archimedes. V. Moravcová explains the concept of Archimedean semi-regular solids, first mentioned and attributed to Archimedes in Pappus' treatise \textit{Synagoge}, lists their mathematical properties, the history of the concept and its current applications. T. Bártlová treats the cattle problem, a Diophantine equation traditionally attributed to Archimedes, in detail. The author reviews modern scholarship which for the most part considers this attribution as spurious. Finally, J. Bečvář explains several methods of calculating roots used in the Antiquity which Archimedes needed for his \textit{Measurement of the circle}.