Euclid (c. 365-300 BC)

Euclid's treatise on geometry, Elements, has made him one of the best-known mathematicians of the ancient world. Greek sources attribute a number of other writings in geometry to Euclid, but these works have been lost. Very little is known of Euclid save that he lived during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (323-283 B.C.) and founded a school in Alexandria, Egypt. Elements is an original reconstruction of earlier mathematical proofs into an altogether new synthesis that superseded all other works in the field up to Euclid's time. It was a major contribution to the philosophical endeavor to rationally understand the order of the physical universe, and consequently had implications for later thinkers about man's place in the world.

Bibliography

Works by the Author

Euclid. Elements of Geometry Book I. New York: Random House, 1944.

Euclid. The Elements. 3 vols. Translated by Thomas L. Heath. St. John's College Press, 1947.

Euclid. The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements. 3 vols. Translated by Thomas L. Heath. New York: Dover Publications, 1956-57.

Source

The biographical material about the author originally appeared on The Goodrich Room: Interactive Tour website.