Dinostrates

was an ancient geometrician, whom some authors have erroneously represented as a disciple of Pythagoras, but who, according to Proclus, lived in the time of Plato, about 360 B. C. and was a disciple of the latter in philosophy. He was chiefly distinguished for his knowledge of geometry, and was the brother of Menechmus, who amplified the theory of the conic sections. Dinostrates also is said to have made many geometrical discoveries; but he is particularly distinguished as the inventor of the quadratrix, by which the quadrature of the circle is effected, though isot geometrically, but only mechanically. Montucla, howev-. T, observes that there is some reason for ascribing the original invention of this curve to Hippias of Elaea, an ingemous philosopher and geometer, contemporary with Socrates. ²