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Ancient Greece saw two thinkers discovering a total of 17 shapes! They were Plato and Archimedes. The first discoveries of shapes were made by them and although their original works have been lost yet the teachings have been handed down from generation-to-generation verbally as was the tradition of the Greeks.

Both Archimedes and Plato used basic shapes like triangle, square etc. to put forth multiple shapes that stemmed from these basic ones.




Plato put forth a set of 3D shapes known as Platonic Solids in his dialogue: the Timaeus. Those shapes have been given below.

• Tetrahedron
• Hexahedron
• Octahedron
• Dodecahedron
• Icosahedron

Archimedes put forth a set of 13 polyhedra shapes collectively known as the Archimedean Solids in his long-lost work Pappus. The list of those shapes has been given below.

• Truncated tetrahedron
• Cuboctahedron
• Truncated Cube
• Truncated Octahedron
• Rhombicuboctahedron
• Truncated Cuboctahedron
• Snub Cube
• Icosidodecahedron
• Truncated Dodecahedron
• Truncated Icosahedron
• Rhombicosidodecahedron
• Truncated Icosidodecahedron
• Snub Dodecahedron

Although the history of shapes bases its soul primarily upon the discovery of the Platonic and the Catalan Solids, it would be incorrect to say that there were no other thinkers or scientists who did have anything to do with the discovery of shapes.

After all, who can forget the Father of Geometry, Euclid himself – Euclid or Euclid of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician who discovered all the basic shapes that we know today. Some of the shapes discovered by him have been given below.

• Square
• Circle
• Rectangle
• Triangle

Plato lived during 427 to 347 BC and was the son of Ariston, a descendant of Codrus – an ancient king of Athens, and Perictione, a descendant of the famous Athenian lawgiver Solon. The time of Plato is also known as the golden age of intellect of Greece with most of the famous thinkers, scientists, and philosophers being present then. Plato was greatly influenced by Pythagoras and Socrates. As Marcus Tulius Cicero, a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, and orator, said, “Platonem ferunt didicisse Pythagorea omnia” or “They say Plato learned all things Pythagorean.”

Archimedes (287 BC – 212 BC) was born in Syracuse, Italy, as per the statement of a Byzantine Greek Historian John Tzetzes. As cited by Plutarch in his Parallel Live, Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse. Archimedes is well known for inventing or discovering quite a lot of things. Some of the notable ones among them include the following:

• The Archimedes Principle
• Archimedes Screw
• The Claw of Archimedes
• Heat Ray

“The upward buoyant force exerted on a fully or partially submerged body is equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces”.

The exact words of Archimedes to put forth this law can be found in his treatise on Hydrostatics called On Floating Bodies:

“Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyant up to a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.”

The Archimedes Screw

This device was simply a tool for transferring liquid from a low-lying liquid-body. For example, the transfer of water from a low-lying water-body into irrigation ditches, as the Greeks used to do for farming. The idea about such a screw is said to have come to Archimedes during his visit to Egypt. Some historians have also claimed that this device was in use by Assyrians somewhere around 350 years ago.

The Archimedes Claw

The Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus was perhaps the best person to turn to for an accurate account of the Archimedes Claw. After all, he faced the wrath of this weapon when he attacked the city of Syracuse with a fleet of 60 Quinqueremes. However, the ingeniousness of this weapon was put to a test in the modern world by a group of scientists who actually created a working model of the Archimedes Claw.

The Heat Ray

This invention of Archimedes comprised a set of mirrors placed strategically to collect the rays of the Sun and heat them! The heated rays were concentrated onto enemy ships with the intention of burning and destroying them.