Elementswork by Euclid

...b = pq, and c = (p2 + q2)/2. As Euclid proves in Book X of the Elements, numbers of this form satisfy the relation for Pythagorean triples. Further, the Mesopotamians appear to have understood that sets of such numbers a, b, and c...

Although Euclid handed down a precedent for number theory in Books VII–IX of the Elements, later writers made no further effort to extend the field of theoretical arithmetic in his demonstrative manner. Beginning with Nicomachus of Gerasa (flourished c. ad 100), several writers produced collections expounding a much simpler form of number theory. A favourite result is...

Algorithms exist for many such infinite classes of questions; Euclid’s Elements, published about 300 bc, contained one for finding the greatest common divisor of two natural numbers. Every elementary school student is drilled in long division, which is an algorithm for the question “Upon dividing a natural number a by another natural number b, what are the quotient...

Euclid compiled his Elements from a number of works of earlier men. Among these are Hippocrates of Chios (flourished c. 460 bc), not to be confused with the physician Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460–377 bc). The latest compiler before Euclid was Theudius, whose textbook was used in the Academy and was probably the one used by Aristotle (384–322...

For 2,000 years the foundations of mathematics seemed perfectly solid. Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 bc), which presented a set of formal logical arguments based on a few basic terms and axioms, provided a systematic method of rational exploration that guided mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists well into the 19th century. Even serious objections to the lack of rigour in Sir...

...his association with the scientifically and mathematically minded Wellbeck Cavendishes. In 1629 or 1630 Hobbes was supposedly charmed by Euclid’s method of demonstrating theorems in the Elements. According to a contemporary biographer, he came upon a volume of Euclid in a gentleman’s study and fell in love with geometry. Later, perhaps in the mid-1630s, he had gained enough...

...Pythagorean mathematician. Plato, a close friend, made use of his work in mathematics, and there is evidence that Euclid borrowed from him for the treatment of number theory in Book VIII of his Elements. Archytas was also an influential figure in public affairs, and he served for seven years as commander in chief of his city.

Eudoxus’s contributions to the early theory of proportions (equal ratios) forms the basis for the general account of proportions found in Book V of Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 bc). Where previous proofs of proportion required separate treatments for lines, surfaces, and solids, Eudoxus provided general proofs. It is unknown, however, how much later mathematicians may have...

Attempts to deal with incommensurables eventually led to the creation of an innovative concept of proportion by Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 400–350 bc), which Euclid preserved in his Elements (c. 300 bc). The theory of proportions remained an important component of mathematics well into the 17th century, by allowing the comparison of ratios of pairs of magnitudes of the same...

geometry

...clever ideas for applying theorems in special situations, an ability to generalize from known facts, and an insistence on the importance of proof. In Euclid’s great work, the Elements, the only tools employed for geometrical constructions were the ruler and compass—a restriction retained in elementary Euclidean geometry to this day.

While many ancient individuals, known and unknown, contributed to the subject, none equaled the impact of Euclid and his Elements of geometry, a book now 2,300 years old and the object of as much painful and painstaking study as the Bible. Much less is known about Euclid, however, than about Moses. In fact, the only thing known with a fair degree of confidence is that...

• non-Euclidean geometry ( in non-Euclidean geometry )

  The second thread started with the fifth (“parallel”) postulate in Euclid’s Elements:

  If a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, will meet on that side on which the angles are less than the two right angles.

• Pythagorean theorem ( in Euclid’s Windmill )

  ...500 bc) or one of his followers may have been the first to prove the theorem that bears his name. Euclid (c. 300 bc) offered a clever demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem in his Elements, known as the Windmill proof from the figure’s shape.

  in Pythagorean theorem )

  proposition number 47 from Book I of Euclid’s Elements, the well-known geometric theorem that the sum of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right triangle)—or, in familiar algebraic notation, a2 + b2 = c2. Although the...

With the European recovery and translation of Greek mathematical texts during the 12th century—the first Latin translation of Euclid’s Elements, by Adelard of Bath, was made about 1120—and with the multiplication of universities beginning around 1200, the Elements was installed as the ultimate textbook in Europe. Academic demand made it attractive to...

By contrast, Euclid presented number theory without the flourishes. He began Book VII of his Elements by defining a number as “a multitude composed of units.” The plural here excluded 1; for Euclid, 2 was the smallest “number.” He later defined a prime as a number “measured by a unit alone” (i.e., whose only proper divisor is 1), a...

The earliest extant mathematical result concerning perfect numbers occurs in Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 bc), where he proves the proposition:

If as many numbers as we please beginning from a unit [1] be set out continuously in double proportion, until the sum of all becomes a prime, and if the sum multiplied into the last make some number, the product...

...recognized since antiquity, when they were studied by the Greek mathematicians Euclid (fl. c. 300 bc) and Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276–194 bc), among others. In his Elements, Euclid gave the first known proof that there are infinitely many primes. Various formulas have been suggested for discovering primes (see number games: Perfect numbers and Mersenne...

...such numbers for their supposed mystical or spiritual qualities.) While many people noticed that the primes seem to “thin out” as the numbers get larger, Euclid in his Elements (c. 300 bc) may have been the first to prove that there is no largest prime; in other words, there are infinitely many primes. Over the ensuing centuries, mathematicians...

...Great, no Greek mathematical documents have been preserved except for fragmentary paraphrases, and, even for the subsequent period, it is well to remember that the oldest copies of Euclid’s Elements are in Byzantine manuscripts dating from the 10th century ad. This stands in complete contrast to the situation described above for Egyptian and Babylonian documents. Although in...

...and compendia which were made, that of Johannes Campanus (c. 1250; first printed in 1482) was easily the most popular, serving as a textbook for many generations. Such redactions of the Elements were made to help students not only to understand Euclid’s textbook but also to handle other, particularly philosophical, questions suggested by passages in Aristotle. The ratio...

translation by

• Adelard of Bath ( in Adelard Of Bath )

  Adelard translated into Latin an Arabic version of Euclid’s Elements, which for centuries served as the chief geometry textbook in the West. He studied and taught in France and traveled in Italy, Cilicia, Syria, Palestine, and perhaps also in Spain (c. 1110–25) before returning to Bath, Eng., and becoming a teacher of the future king Henry II. In his Platonizing dialogue...

• Barrow ( in Barrow, Isaac )

  ...mid-1650s he contemplated the publication of a full and accurate Latin edition of the Greek mathematicians, yet in a concise manner that utilized symbols for brevity. However, only Euclid’s Elements and Data appeared in 1656 and 1657, respectively, while other texts that Barrow prepared at the time—by Archimedes, Apollonius of Perga, and Theodosius of...

Greek geometer who compiled the first known work on the elements of geometry nearly a century before Euclid. Although the work is no longer extant, Euclid may have used it as a model for his Elements.

Theaetetus made important contributions to the mathematics that Euclid (fl. c. 300 bc) eventually collected and systematized in his Elements. A key area of Theaetetus’s work was on incommensurables (which correspond to irrational numbers in modern mathematics), in which he extended the work of Theodorus by devising the basic classification of incommensurable magnitudes into different...