Archytas

Archytas
Bust from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, once identified as Archytas, now thought to be Pythagoras
Born	428 BC Tarentum, Magna Graecia
Died	347 BC (aged 80–81)
Era	Pre-Socratic philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Pythagoreanism
Notable ideas	Archytas curve
Influences Philolaus
Influenced Menaechmus, Eudoxus of Cnidus

Archytas (/ˈɑːrkɪtəs/; Greek: Ἀρχύτας; 428–347 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, , and strategist. He was a scientist of the Pythagorean school and famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics, as well as a good friend of Plato.

Archytas was born in Tarentum, Magna Graecia and was the son of Mnesagoras or Histiaeus. For a while, he was taught by Philolaus, and was a teacher of mathematics to Eudoxus of Cnidus. Archytas and Eudoxus' student was Menaechmus. As a Pythagorean, Archytas believed that only arithmetic, not geometry, could provide a basis for satisfactory proofs.

Archytas is believed to be the founder of mathematical mechanics. As only described in the writings of Aulus Gellius five centuries after him, he was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown some 200 meters. This machine, which its inventor called The pigeon, may have been suspended on a wire or pivot for its flight. Archytas also wrote some lost works, as he was included by Vitruvius in the list of the twelve authors of works of mechanics. Thomas Winter has suggested that the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems is an important mechanical work by Archytas, not lost after all, but misattributed.