Nicoteles of Cyrene

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Nicoteles of Cyrene (Greek: Νικοτέλης ὁ Κυρηναῖος) (c. 250 BC) was a Greek mathematician from Cyrene.

He is mentioned in the preface to Book 4 of the Conics of Apollonius, as criticising Conon concerning the maximum number of points with which a conic section can meet another conic section. Apollonius states that Nicoteles claimed that the case in which a conic section meets opposite sections could be solved, but had not demonstrated how.

It is possible that Nicoteles could be a misspelling of Nicomedes.

References

Bibliography

  • Fried, Michael; Unguru, Sabetai (2001). Apollonius of Perga's Conica: Text, Context, Subtext. Mnemosyne. Leiden: Brill. .
  • Heath, Thomas L., ed. (2002) [1897]. The Works of Archimedes. Mnemosyne. Mineola, N.Y: Dover Publications. pp. 189–190. .
  • Fuentes González, P. P.; de Cyrène, Nicotélès (2005). Goulet, Richard (ed.). Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques. Vol. 4. Paris: CNRS. pp. 702–703. .