The preface addressed to Dositheus shows, as we may also infer from internal evidence, that the whole of this book also was original. Archimedes first explains what his conoids and spheroids are, and then, after each
description, states the main results which it is the aim of the treatise to prove. The conoids are two. The first is the right-angled conoid, a name adapted from the old name (“section of a right-angled cone”) for a parabola; this conoid is therefore a paraboloid of revolution. The second is the obtuse-angled conoid, which is a hyperboloid of revolution described by the revolution of a hyperbola (a “section of an obtuse-angled cone”) about its transverse axis. The spheroids are two, being the solids of revolution described by the revolution of an ellipse (a “section of an acute-angled cone”) about (1) its major axis and (2) its minor axis; the first is called the “oblong” (or oblate) spheroid, the second the “flat” (or prolate) spheroid. As the volumes of oblique segments of conoids and spheroids are afterwards found in terms of the volume of the conical figure with the base of the segment as base and the vertex of the segment as vertex, and as the said base is thus an elliptic section of an oblique circular cone, Archimedes calls the conical figure with an elliptic base a “segment of a cone” as distinct from a “cone”.
As usual, a series of preliminary propositions is required. Archimedes first sums, in geometrical form, certain series, including the arithmetical
progression, a , 2 a , 3 a , ... na , and the series formed by the squares of these terms (in other words the series 1², 2², 3², ... n ²); these summations are required for the final addition of an indefinite number of elements of each figure, which amounts to an integration . Next come two properties of conics (Prop. 3), then the determination by the method of exhaustion of the area of an ellipse (Prop. 4). Three propositions follow, the first two of which (Props. 7, 8) show that the conical figure above referred to is really a segment of an oblique circular cone; this is done by actually