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AUTHORS:

Achillini, Alessandro

Agricola, Georgius

Alberti, Leone Battista

Archimedes

Aristotle

Babington, John

Baif, Lazare de

Baldi, Bernardino

Baliani, Giovanni Battista

Barocius, Franciscus

Benedetti, Giovanni Battista

Berga, Antonio

Biancani, Giuseppe

Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso

Borro, Girolamo

Boyle, Robert

Branca, Giovanni

Buonamici, Francesco

Buteo, Johannes

Cardano, Girolamo

Casati, Paolo

Castelli, Benedetto

Cataneo, Girolamo

Ceredi, Giuseppe

Ceva, Giovanni

Cicero, M. Tullius

Commandino, Federico

Delfino, Federico

Descartes, Rene

Epicurus

Euclid

Fabri, Honore

Foscarini, Paolo Antonio

Galilei, Galileo

Gassendi, Pierre

Ghetaldi, Marino

Giphanius, Hubert

Guevara, Giovanni di

Heron Alexandrinus

Heytesbury, William

Hutton, Charles

Jordanus de Nemore

Landi, Bassiano

Lorini, Buonaiuto

Lucretius

Manuzio, Paolo

Marci of Kronland, Johannes Marcus

Mellini, Domenico

Mersenne, Marin

Monantheuil, Henri de

Monte, Guidobaldo del

Morelli, Gregorio

Newton, Isaac

Pacioli, Luca

Pappus Alexandrinus

Salusbury, Thomas

Santbech, Daniel

Schott, Gaspar

Schreck, Johann Terrenz

Stelliola, Niccolò Antonio

Stevin, Simon

Tartaglia, Niccolò

Thomaz, Alvaro

Thucydides

Torricelli, Evangelista

Valerio, Luca

Varro, Michel

Vitruvius Pollio

Wolff, Christian von


























 
Euclid
born around 365, died around 300 B.C.

Little is known about his life. According to Proclus he was younger than the first pupils of Plato, whose research he used, and older than Archimedes, who took his postulates for granted. During the rule of Ptolemy I he worked in Alexandria. Pappos extols his benevolence to other mathematicians and his modesty in not exaggerating the importance of his own achievements.
His main work is the Elements, which probably originated around 325 B.C. and exerted a decisive influence on the development of mathematics well into the 19th century. These elements are exemplary in composition and structure throughout the entire work and, as Aristotle claimed any demonstrative science must, starts with definitions, postulates and axioms from which further theses are derived deductively in the form of problems or theorems. The elements are essentially a summary of the geometric knowledge accumulated by his predecessors, but this hardly lessens Euclid’s importance and uniqueness in science.
Also preserved is his Data, which deals with planimetric questions and supplements the Elements. He addresses important questions of mathematical astronomy in his Phaenomena. In Optica the laws of perspective are described and the apparent size and shape of figures studied from varying positions and distances. The Sectio canonis portrays the Pythagorean theory of music in the manner of the Elements. All of Euclid’s works are known only through ancient testimony. The attribution of a Cataoptrics (theory of reflections) to Euclid is questionable. It is also unclear whether Euclid was actually the author of a book on mechanics (De levi et ponderoso) in Arabic that was preserved in Latin translation.



Digital facsimiles (1 texts)

              Title

Edition

Elementorum geometricorum Libri XV
1558