section_path: Mathematics/The infinite series
section_name: The infinite series
paragraph_text: The infinite series
  
  In Quadrature of the Parabola, Archimedes proved that the area enclosed by a parabola and a straight line is 4 / 3 times the area of a corresponding inscribed triangle as shown in the figure at right. He expressed the solution to the problem as an infinite geometric series with the common ratio 1 / 4:
  
  If the first term in this series is the area of the triangle, then the second is the sum of the areas of two triangles whose bases are the two smaller secant lines, and whose third vertex is where the line that is parallel to the parabola's axis and that passes through the midpoint of the base intersects the parabola, and so on. This proof uses a variation of the series 1/4 + 1/16 + 1/64 + 1/256 + · · · which sums to 1 / 3.