Databases
Start your research by typing the name of your significant individual into the following databases. Remember to check the 'Best Websites' section of Encyclopaedia Britannica whilst you are in the database.
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- Britannica Schools This link opens in a new window
Britannica School covers the core subject areas of English, Maths, Science and History. Interactive lessons, activities, games, stories, worksheets, manipulatives, study guides and research tools.
- World Book Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
Online version of the complete reference work along with dictionary, atlas, links, magazines, historical documents, audio, video, images, and 3D photograph
Resource Key
When accessing content use the numbers below to guide you:
LEVEL 1
brief, basic information laid out in an easy-to-read format. May use informal language. (Includes most news articles)
LEVEL 2
provides additional background information and further reading. Introduces some subject-specific language.
LEVEL 3
lengthy, detailed information. Frequently uses technical/subject-specific language. (Includes most analytical articles)
Websites
Type the name of your significant individual into the following websites.
- Encyclopedia.comEncyclopedia.com has more than 100 trusted sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses with facts, definitions, biographies, synonyms, pronunciation keys, word origins, and abbreviations.
- Biography.comEvery life has a story. Biography.com captures the most gripping, surprising and fascinating stories about famous people. The last fateful day. The decision that changed everything. The moment of cheating death. The biggest break. The defining opportunity. The most shattering failure. The unexpected connection. With over 7,000 biographies and daily features that highlight newsworthy, compelling and surprising points-of-view, we are the digital source for true stories about people that matter.
- The Famous PeopleThefamouspeople.com chronicles the life history of some of the world's most famous people and achievers. The biographies of these people feature the achievements and works that have influenced the course of history.
Read more at http://www.thefamouspeople.com/#7eLPQJJ0kJQGe5ih.99 - Your DictionaryAs a supplement to the over 7,000 biographies included in the Encyclopedia of World Biography, YourDictionary has a team of writers creating additional biographies on other notable current and historical figures. Our bios are great for school research projects or just for the casual reader who wants to learn more about the history of the world she lives in.
Greek Scientists
- Ancient History Encyclopedia. (2009-2015). Archimedes. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.ancient.eu/Archimedes/One of the first details we read about Archimedes (287-212 BCE) in almost every account of his life is the famous scene where he runs wet and naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting “Eureka!, Eureka!” (“I have found it!”). This nudist episode, however, fails to capture the respect that the life of the greatest Greek mathematician and mechanical engineer of antiquity deserves. Archimedes was a pioneer in mathematics and engineering, many centuries ahead of his contemporaries. He was the son of an astronomer named Phidias, lived in the Greek city of Syracuse, studied in Alexandria under the successors of Euclid, and was on intimate terms with King Hieron II, the ruler of Syracuse.
- BBC History. (2015). Archimedes (c.287 - c.212 BC). Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/archimedes.shtmlArchimedes was a Greek mathematician, philosopher and inventor who wrote important works on geometry, arithmetic and mechanics.
- Luke Mastin. (2010). Hellenistic Mathematics - Archimedes. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.storyofmathematics.com/hellenistic_archimedes.htmlAnother Greek mathematician who studied at Alexandria in the 3rd Century BCE was Archimedes, although he was born, died and lived most of his life in Syracuse, Sicily (a Hellenic Greek colony in Magna Graecia). Little is known for sure of his life, and many of the stories and anecdotes about him were written long after his death by the historians of ancient Rome.
- Famous Scientists. (2015). Archimedes. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.famousscientists.org/archimedes/Archimedes was, arguably, the world’s greatest scientist – certainly the greatest scientist of the classical age. He was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, engineer, inventor, and weapons-designer. As we shall see, he was a man who was both of his time, and far ahead of his time.
- Ancient History Encyclopedia. (2009-2015). Aristarchus of Samos. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.ancient.eu/Aristarchus_of_Samos/Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 - c. 230 BCE) was an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer from Ionia who came up with a revolutionary astronomical hypothesis. He claimed the Sun, not the Earth, was the fixed centre of the universe, and that the Earth, along with the rest of the planets, revolved around the Sun. He also said that the stars were distant suns that remained unmoved and that the size of the universe was much larger than his contemporaries believed.
- Famous Scientists. (2015). Aristarchus. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.famousscientists.org/aristarchus/It’s funny, but not all of the scientists we talk about on this website are actually famous. Some of them, like Aristarchus, deserve to be… but they’re not.
- Ancient History Encyclopedia. (2009-2015). Euclid. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.ancient.eu/Euclid/Euclid of Alexandria (lived c. 300 BCE) systematized ancient Greek and Near Eastern mathematics and geometry. He wrote The Elements, the most widely used mathematics and geometry textbook in history. Older books sometimes confuse him with Euclid of Megara. Modern economics has been called "a series of footnotes to Adam Smith," who was the author of The Wealth of Nations (1776 CE). Likewise, much of Western mathematics has been a series of footnotes to Euclid, either developing his ideas or challenging them.
- Luke Mastin. (2010). Hellenistic Mathematics - Euclid. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.storyofmathematics.com/hellenistic_euclid.htmlThe Greek mathematician Euclid lived and flourished in Alexandria in Egypt around 300 BCE, during the reign of Ptolemy I. Almost nothing is known of his life, and no likeness or first-hand description of his physical appearance has survived antiquity, and so depictions of him (with a long flowing beard and cloth cap) in works of art are necessarily the products of the artist's imagination.
- Famous Scientists. (2015). Euclid. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.storyofmathematics.com/hellenistic_euclid.htmlThe famous Greek scientist and mathematician Euclid (300 BC) is best known as the author of the Elements, the oldest book consisting of geometrical theorems which is considered to be a standard for logical exposition.
- History Learning Site. (2015). Hippocrates. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/a-history-of-medicine/hippocrates/Hippocrates made such an impression on medical history that his name is still very much associated with medicine today. All newly qualified doctors take what is called the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ and some see Hippocrates as the father of modern medicine even though he did most of his work some 430 years before the birth of Christ.
- Ancient History Encyclopedia. (2009-2015). Pythagoras. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.ancient.eu/Pythagoras/Pythagoras (ca. 571- ca. 497 BCE) was a Greek philosopher born on the island of Samos, off Asia Minor, where his ancestors had settled after leaving Phlius, a city in the northwest Peloponnese, after the civil war there in 380 BCE. While this 'fact’ of Pythagoras’ life is held to be true, it, like so much else written of the man, is impossible to verify. None of Pythagoras’ own writings remain and so much mythology grew up surrounding him, much of it by later writers who accepted, uncritically, what they read by others, that all one can say with certainty is that there was a figure in ancient Greece named Pythagoras and that this man founded a philosophical/religious order known as the Pythagoreans.
- Famous Scientists. (2015). Pythagoras. Retrieved 5 November, 2015, from http://www.famousscientists.org/pythagoras/Pythagoras is someone most people have heard of, but he is an enigma. The trouble is trust. Can we trust what we read about him? Sadly, the answer is no. We can’t trust a lot of it, because if we did, we would have to believe he had god-like powers. We DO know about the beliefs of a religious-mathematical cult called the Pythagoreans. And we DO know that the Pythagoreans made great advances in mathematics.
Light Fantastic
Included in Pt 1: Empedocles' idea, that we see objects because light streams out of our eyes and touches them, became the fundamental basis on which mathematicians would construct some of the most important theories on light and vision. Euclid's Optics expanded this idea to make an important breakthrough: We know in our minds that a faraway building is bigger, yet it is possible to position a finger such that our eye tells us they are of similar size. Euclid's elegant solution was that the eye and both the tops of finger and building must lie on the same line - thus the rays from the eye must follow straight lines; the new discipline of geometry could thus make predictions and solve problems of light and optics.
Pythagoras' Theorem
21 min.In this Australian-made, curriculum fit program we discover Pythagoras' Theorem and see how it is used to solve real world problems by finding unknown values in right-angled triangles. And who better to introduce and demonstrate the theorem than Pythagoras himself?