Archimedes was not a mathematician.
Archimedes . Generally considered the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time , Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying concepts of infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems , including the area of a circle , the surface area and volume of a sphere , and the area under a parabola . He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena , founding hydrostatics and statics , including an explanation of the principle of the lever . Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him , but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until by Isidore of Miletus in Byzantine Constantinople , while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time .