The ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse was the first mathematician to make explicit use of infinitesimals. His work with infinitesimals is found in the celebrated Archimedes Palimpsest. The palimpsest embodies Archimedes' account of his "mechanical method", so called because it relies on the concepts of torque exerted on a lever and of center of gravity. Both of those concepts were first introduced by Archimedes. Archimedes (Greek: Αρχιμήδης ) (c. ... Syracuse (Italian, Siracusa, ancient Syracusa - see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a city on the eastern coast of Sicily and the capital of the province of Syracuse, Italy. ... In mathematics, an infinitesimal, or infinitely small number, is a number that is smaller in absolute value than any positive real number. ... The Archimedes Palimpsest is a palimpsest on parchment in the form of a codex which originally was a copy of an otherwise unknown work of the ancient mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse. ... In physics, torque can be thought of informally as rotational force. The SI units for Torque are newton meters although centinewton meters (cN·m), foot-pounds force (ft·lbf), inch pounds (lbf·in) and inch ounces (ozf·in) are also frequently used expressions of torque. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ...

Ironically, Archimedes disbelieved in the existence of infinitesimals, and therefore said explicitly that his arguments fall short of being finished mathematical proofs. In mathematics, the Archimedean property of an ordered algebraic structure, such as a linearly ordered group, and in particular of the real numbers, is the property of having no (non-zero) infinitesimals. ...

The proof of the first proposition in the palimpsest appears below.

The first proposition in the palimpsest

The curve in this figure is a parabola. Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about: Parabola A parabola The parabola (from the Greek: παραβολή) is a conic section generated by the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface. ...

The points A and B are on the curve. The line AC is parallel to the axis of the parabola. The line BC is tangent to the parabola. The first proposition states: In mathematics, the word tangent has two distinct, but etymologically-related meanings: one in geometry, and one in trigonometry. ...

The area of the triangle ABC is exactly three times the area bounded by the parabola and the secant line AB.

Proof: Let D be the midpoint of AC. The point D is the fulcrum of a lever, which is the line JB. The points J and B are equidistant from the fulcrum. As Archimedes had shown, the center of gravity of the interior of the triangle is at a point I on the "lever" so located that DI:DB = 1:3. Therefore, it suffices to show that if the whole weight of the interior of the triangle rests at I, and the whole weight of the section of the parabola at J, the lever is in equilibrium. If the whole weight of the triangle rests at I, it exerts the same torque on the lever as if the infinitely small weight of every cross-section EH parallel to the axis of the parabola rests at the point G where it intersects the lever. Therefore, it suffices to show that if the weight of that cross-section rests at G and the weight of the cross-section EF of the section of the parabola rests at J, then the lever is in equilibrium. In other words, it suffices to show that EF:GD = EH:JD. That is equivalent to EF:DG = EH:DB. And that is equivalent to EF:EH = AE:AB. But that is just the equation of the parabola. Q.E.D.. Q.E.D. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum (literally, which was to be demonstrated). In simple terms, its use is to indicate that something has been definitively proven. ...

Other propositions in the palimpsest

A series of other propositions of geometry are proved in the palimpsest by similar arguments. Some of them have the location of a center of gravity as the conclusion. One of those states that the center of gravity of the interior of a hemisphere is located 5/8 of the way from the pole to the center of the sphere.