Area of a circle of Cnidus in the fifth century B.C. had found that the area of a disk is proportional to its radius squared. Archimedes used the tools of Euclidean geometry to show that the area inside a circle is equal to that of a right triangle whose base has the length of the circle's circumference and whose height equals the circle's radius in his book "Measurement of a Circle". The circumference is 2"r", and the area of a triangle is half the base times the height, yielding the area "r" for the disk. Prior to Archimedes, Hippocrates of Chios was the first
Distance from a point to a line are vertical lines). Corresponding sides of these triangles are in the same ratio, so: If point "S" has coordinates ("x","m") then |"PS"| = |"y" - "m"| and the distance from "P" to the line is: Since "S" is on the line, we can find the value of m, and finally obtain: A variation of this proof is to place V at P and compute the area of the triangle ∆"UVT" two ways to obtain that formula_17 where D is the altitude of ∆"UVT" drawn to the hypoteneuse of ∆"UVT" from "P". The distance formula can then used to express formula_18,