very different circumstances surround our knowledge of ancient Greece. There are almost no mathematical records that come to us in their original form from that period of histor The major ad vances in knowledge and ications Mof mathenearly every instance, with some individual mathematician, philosopher or scientist. The works of such personalities as Thales, Euclid, Zeno, Pythagoras and Archimedes dominate the scene, but their original books and and medieval scholars over the centuries painstaking ingly copied their works time and time aBai There. fore, it should be made clear that modern knowl. edge is based upon copies of copies of the original works.