Editing Archimedes (section)

==== The cattle problem ====
{{Main|Archimedes's cattle problem|l1 = Archimedes' cattle problem}}
In this work, addressed to Eratosthenes and the mathematicians in Alexandria, Archimedes challenges them to count the numbers of cattle in the [[The Cattle of Helios|Herd of the Sun]], which involves solving a number of simultaneous [[Diophantine equation]]s. [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]] discovered this work in a Greek manuscript consisting of a 44-line poem in the [[Herzog August Library]] in [[Wolfenbüttel]], Germany in 1773. There is a more difficult version of the problem in which some of the answers are required to be [[square number]]s. A. Amthor first solved this version of the problem<ref>Krumbiegel, B. and Amthor, A. ''Das Problema Bovinum des Archimedes'', Historisch-literarische Abteilung der Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 25 (1880) pp. 121–136, 153–171.</ref> in 1880, and the answer is a [[very large number]], approximately 7.760271{{e|206544}}.<ref>{{cite web |first=Keith G |last=Calkins |url=http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/profess/cattle.htm |title=Archimedes' Problema Bovinum |publisher=[[Andrews University]] |access-date=14 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012171254/http://andrews.edu/~calkins/profess/cattle.htm |archive-date=12 October 2007}}</ref>