Balanos Vasilopoulos ( el, Μπαλάνος Βασιλόπουλος; 1694–1760) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

cleric, author, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is known for attempting to solve

doubling the cube Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometric problem. Given the edge of a cube, the problem requires the construction of the edge of a second cube whose volume is double that of the first. As with the related pro ...

. He was one of the most influential Greek mathematicians of the 18th century. His teacher was the notable scientist

Methodios Anthrakites Methodios Anthrakites ( el, Μεθόδιος Ανθρακίτης; 1660–1736) was a Greek Orthodox cleric, author, educator, mathematician, astronomer, physicist, and philosopher. He directed the Gioumeios and Epiphaneios Schools in Ioannina. ...

. He made a significant contribution to the

Modern Greek Enlightenment The Modern Greek Enlightenment ( el, Διαφωτισμός, ''Diafotismos'', "enlightenment," "illumination"; also known as the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment) was the Greek expression of the Age of Enlightenment. Origins The Greek Enlightenment w ...

during the Ottoman occupation of the Greek world.

Life

Balanos was born in

Ioannina Ioannina ( el, Ιωάννινα ' ), often called Yannena ( ' ) within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus, an administrative region in north-western Greece. According to the 2011 census, the c ...

, a major center of the Greek Enlightenment movement during that time. He was a student of

director of the local Gouma (later Balaneios) school. As a teacher, he initially became director of the school Epifaneios Igoumenos (1719–1734) and then the Gouma. Both schools were the most prestigious in Ioannina. Regarding the

Greek language question The Greek language question ( el, το γλωσσικό ζήτημα, ''to glossikó zítima'') was a dispute about whether the language of the Greek people ( Demotic Greek) or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek (''Katharevousa'') should be ...

, he supported the conservative party and teaching classical Greek in education. Eugenios Voulgaris accused Balanos of not supporting the progressive

Demotic Demotic may refer to: * Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language * Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language * Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese See also * * Demos (disa ...

. In ca. 1760 his son

Kosmas Balanos Kosmas Balanos ( el, Κοσμάς Μπαλάνος) (1731–1808) was a Greek mathematician, author and school director. He continued the work of his father Balanos Vasilopoulos, and was among Greece's leading scholars of his time. Life He was b ...

succeeded him as schoolmaster of the Gouma School.Μπαλάνος Κοσμάς 1731, Ιωάννινα – 1807/8, Ιωάννινα
Ελληνομνήμων. University of Athens database.

Work

Because he experienced the Methodios Affair first hand he was a strict teacher of Korydalism. On the other hand, he expanded and reprinted the work of his teacher Methodios Anthrakites ''The Way of Mathematics'' ( el, Οδός Μαθηματική, 1749). This was the first handbook in the field of mathematics published in Greek during the Ottoman occupation. He also wrote the following, and various other books of less significance: *''Έκθεσις ακριβεστάτη της αριθμητικής (Precise Exposition of Arithmetic)'', Venice, 1803 *''Ερμηνεία εις τους αφορισμούς του Ιπποκράτους (Interpretation of the Aphorisms of

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

)'' Balanos claimed to have solved the problem of

, i.e. finding the cube root of 2 using ruler and compasses. He published this in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

in 1756, and attempted to gain international recognition for his solution from the community of mathematicians, and in particular

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...

and the members of the

Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

. His son

rejected the solution in a work published in 1816 after his own death, ''Αντιπελάργησις'' (''Antipelargisis, Against the Stork''). The problem was later proved to be impossible.Lambrou, Michael. “An attempt to duplicate the cube during Ottoman times, and the text of ‘Antipelargisis’”. (Euclides, 11 (1994) 41-67). Cited in hi
Curriculum Vitae
, retrieved 25 June 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasilopoulos, Balanos 1694 births 1760 deaths People of the Modern Greek Enlightenment Greek logicians Writers from Ioannina Greek mathematicians 18th-century Greek philosophers Ottoman Ioannina Scientists from Ioannina 18th-century Greek scientists 18th-century Greek educators 18th-century Greek mathematicians 18th-century Greek physicists