Euclid

by Gage Sumner

Little is known of the life or other facts about Euclid other than that he taught at a school in Alexandria, he was very familiar with the school since he grew up around it in the late fourth century.

Euclid was born in Alexandria in 325 B.C., he later died in Alexandria after living an average or above average lifetime for the time he lived in. In this lifetime he made many discoveries important to geometry as well as science. He is most famous for his writing of the elements, which many formulas that we use today are derived from. There are thirteen books total. The first six of the twelve cover elementary plane geometry and have served as a base for the general subject. The rest of the elements cover solid geometry. One of the greatest contributions was his deductive use of representation.

Although many of Euclid's system no longer compares to or meets the modern requirements of logical rigor, his contribution is still undeniably one of the greatest in the history of geometry. What made people think this of Euclid was the fact that Euclid's fifth postulate, that states, “ one and only one line parallel to a given line can be drawn through a point external to the line”, this cannot be proved by the other postulates, but by substituting another postulate this can be proved.

During the middle ages, Euclid was also known as Euclid of Megara, this confusion was due to the Socratic Philosopher who lived around 400 B.C.

Euclid was known as having a good reputation as well as being a kind individual; this information survives through famous stories, which are told about him still today.