geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, a quadratrix () is a

curve In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that ...

having

ordinate In common usage, the abscissa refers to the (''x'') coordinate and the ordinate refers to the (''y'') coordinate of a standard two-dimensional graph. The distance of a point from the y-axis, scaled with the x-axis, is called abscissa or x coo ...

s which are a measure of the

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while ''surface area'' refers to the area of an open su ...

(or quadrature) of another curve. The two most famous curves of this class are those of

Dinostratus Dinostratus ( el, Δεινόστρατος; c. 390 – c. 320 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and geometer, and the brother of Menaechmus. He is known for using the quadratrix to solve the problem of squaring the circle. Life and work Dinostratu ...

and E. W. Tschirnhaus, which are both related to the

circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

Quadratrix of Dinostratus

The quadratrix of Dinostratus (also called the ''quadratrix of Hippias'') was well known to the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

geometers, and is mentioned by

Proclus Proclus Lycius (; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus the Successor ( grc-gre, Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, ''Próklos ho Diádokhos''), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophe ...

, who ascribes the invention of the curve to a contemporary of