Sporus of Nicaea was a Greekmathematician and astronomer, born: circa 240, probably Nicaea (GreekNikaia), ancient district Bithynia, (modern-day Iznik) in province Bursa, in modern day Turkey, died: circa 300. Nicaea is also the ancient name of the French city Nice. ... A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ... For alternate uses, see Number 240. ... Bithynia was an ancient province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Black Sea (Euxine). ... Bursa (formerly known as Brusa or Prusa) is the capital of the Bursa Province in northwestern Turkey. ... For other uses, see number 300. ...
Much of his work focused on squaring the circle and reproducing cubes, both in his own attempts at these problems or in criticizing the work of other contemporary mathematicians.
In his turn, Sporus taught Pappus of Alexandria, or perhaps was an older pupil at the same time as Pappus, and we know of him through Pappus's writings and the writings of Eutocius.
One of his contributions, which is described by Pappus, was to criticise the method of squaring the circle using the quadratrix of Hippias.
Sporus also criticised Archimedes for not producing a more accurate approximation of π.
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