The Greeks were left with an ambivalent attitude towards numbers. They understood the need to go beyond rationals, but were reluctant to go much beyond square roots as they were identified with lengths in euclidean geometry. At the same time they hankered after an understanding of cube roots, which seemed to reside at another level in the hierarchy that they were reluctant to recognize, for they could find no satisfactory way of getting to grips with it. There was also the vexed question of the value of π.
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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(2008). Glimpses of Infinity. In: Number Story. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-001-8_7
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