Area of a circle Archimedes is not rigorous by modern standards, because it assumes that we can compare the length of arc of a circle to the length of a secant and a tangent line, and similar statements about the area, as geometrically evident. The area of a regular polygon is half its perimeter times the apothem. As the number of sides of the regular polygon increases, the polygon tends to a circle, and the apothem tends to the radius. This suggests that the area of a disk is half the circumference of its bounding circle times the radius. Following Archimedes' argument in "The
Area of a circle "area" and "circumference". The analytical definitions are seen to be equivalent, if it is agreed that the circumference of the circle is measured as a rectifiable curve by means of the integral The integral appearing on the right is an abelian integral whose value is a half-period of the sine function, equal to . Thus formula_6 is seen to be true as a theorem. Several of the arguments that follow use only concepts from elementary calculus to reproduce the formula formula_1, but in many cases to regard these as actual proofs, they rely implicitly on the fact that one can