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Of all lines which have the same extremities the straight line is the least.
Archimedes287–212 BC · scientist · Ancient GreeceArchimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician and inventor who discovered important ideas about levers, buoyancy, and geometry.4 quotes
Source foundScienceAncient

In plain words

Between two points, the straight path is always the shortest one. Every bend makes the trip longer.

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Where these words come from

How sure this is
95% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up
On the Sphere and Cylinder, Book I, Assumption 1, c. 225 BC; trans. T. L. Heath, The Works of Archimedes (1897), p. 3.
Work
On the Sphere and Cylinder, Book I, Assumption 1; trans. T. L. Heath, 1897
Occasion
c. 225 BC · Syracuse, Sicily · the first assumption of his book on spheres and cylinders — the ancestor of 'a straight line is the shortest path'
Sources checked
  • archive.orgChecked using claude-fable-5, 22 August 2026Full djvu text read this pass; Assumption 1 verbatim in the treatise's own ASSUMPTIONS list (not Heath's commentary — his footnote calls it 'this well-known Archimedean assumption', citing Proclus). Complete standalone postulate; ancestor of the proverb 'a straight line is the shortest distance'.

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Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.ArchimedesEureka! I have found it!ArchimedesIn fact, how many theorems in geometry which have seemed at first impracticable are in time successfully worked out!Archimedes

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