Heron of Alexandria

Another worker in applied mathematics belonging to the period under consideration was Heron of Alexandria. His much disputed date, with possibilities ranging from 150 BC to 250 AD, has recently been plausibly placed in the second half of the first century AD. His works on mathematical and physical subjects are so numerous and varied that it is customary to describe him as an encyclopedic writer in these fields. There are reasons to suppose he was an Egyptian …

…man. Common fractions were used to some extent by the Greeks, at first with numerator placed below the denominator, later with the positions reversed (and without the bar separating the two), but Heron, writing for the practical man, seems to have preferred unit fractions. In dividing 25 by 13 he wrote the answer as 1 + ½ +1/3 + 1/13 + 1/78. The old Egyptian addiction to unit fractions continued in Europe for at least a thousand years after the time of Heron. (Boyer, 190-193)