Edmond Halley's Reconstruction of the Lost Book of Apollonius's Conics

Apollonius's Conics was one of the greatest works of advanced mathematics in antiquity. The work comprised eight books, of which four have come down to us in their original Greek and three in Arabic. By the time the Arabic translations were produced, the eighth book had already been lost. In 1710, Edmond Halley, then Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, produced an edition of the Greek text of the Conics of Books I-IV, a translation into Latin from the Arabic versions of Books V-VII, and a reconstruction of Book VIII. The present work provides the first completeEnglish translation of Halley's reconstruction of Book VIII withsupplementary notes on the text. It also contains 1)an introduction discussing aspects of Apollonius's Conics 2) an investigation of Edmond Halley's understanding ofthe nature of his venture into ancient mathematics, and 3) anappendices giving a brief account of Apollonius's approach to conic sections and his mathematical techniques. This book will be of interest to students and researchers interested in the history ofancientGreekmathematics and mathematics in the early modern period.