Analytical Geometry

In its abbreviated form АГЕΩΜΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ Plato’s dictum — in capital Greek letters, of course — was chiseled into the portal to the Athenean Academy and you find it today in the seal of the American Mathematical Society. Have you ever thought about what academy means? Probably not; but you are in academe and so here is the story. While Socrates (c. 470–399 B.C.) taught like so many before him in public — on the Athenean marketplace or ’Aγορά — Plato founded the Academy near Athens around 387 B.C. The word academy or ’ Aϰαδημία comes from its location in the grove of Academos so named after a mythological Attic hero.