Mathematician:Euclid

Mathematician
In Greek: Εὐκλείδης (Eukleídēs), also known as Euclid of Alexandria.

Little is known about him, apart from: There is controversy as to whether he did actually exist. It has been suggested that the name Euclid was a pseudonym for a team of mathematicians working as a team. (See for a modern example of this.)
 * He taught in Alexandria (then a Macedonian colony);
 * He assembled the geometry text, possibly the most famous mathematics text book of all time.

Not to be confused with the Socratic philosopher Euclid of Megara.

Nationality
Greek

History

 * Born: c. 325 BCE
 * Died: c. 265 BCE, Alexandria, Egypt

Theorems and Definitions

 * The field of Euclidean geometry.
 * Euclid's Lemma
 * Euclid's Theorem
 * Euclid's Algorithm
 * Euclid Numbers (erroneously so named - such numbers derive from a version of the proof of Euclid's Theorem that he himself never made.)

Several concepts are named after him, but they were so named because they possess properties inherited from concepts which Euclid introduced:


 * Euclidean Domain
 * Euclidean Metric, Euclidean Space and Euclidean Topology
 * Euclidean Relation
 * Euclidean Valuation

Publications

 * c. 300 BCE:
 * The Pseudaria (or Pseudographemata) (referred to by, believed irreparably lost): a more elementary primer on geometry
 * The Data: elementary exercises in analysis, supplementary to
 * On Divisions (of Figures) (mentioned by, lost in Greek but survived in Arabic): concerns dissection of geometric figures
 * The Porisms: a collection of theorems and problems in more advanced geometry
 * The Surface-Loci (mentioned by, now considered lost): may have concerned surfaces of revolution
 * The Conics: now lost, but according to may have been the basis of the work of the same name by . It was well-known to  who quoted it extensively.
 * The Phaenomena: a work of astronomy and spherical geometry which still exists
 * The Optics
 * Elements of Music (but it is disputed as to whether he actually wrote this)

Misattributions

 * The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.


 * This misattribution seems first to have appeared in A Mathematical Journey by (1994), p. xv.


 * It is suspected that it originated from.


 * Many sources have propagated this mistake, and many of those use it as an excuse to preach sermons on the subject.

Anecdotes (of questionable accuracy)

 * Ptolemy once asked Euclid if there was any shorter way to a knowledge of geometry than that of the Elements, and he replied that there is no royal road to geometry.


 * Someone who had begun to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learned the first proposition, asked him: "What shall I get from learning these things?" Euclid called his slave and said, "Give this person a penny, since he must make a profit out of what he learns."
 * -- Stobaeus

Critical View

 * [Abraham Lincoln] studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he was a member of Congress.
 * He began a course of rigid mental discipline with the intent to improve his faculties, especially his powers of logic and language. Hence his fondness for Euclid, which he carried with him on the circuit till he could demonstrate with ease all the propositions in the six books; often studying far into the night, with a candle near his pillow, while his fellow-lawyers, half a dozen in a room, filled the air with interminable snoring.
 * -- Abraham Lincoln: Short Autobiography ($1860$)
 * -- Quoted in : They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say