The mathematician Euclid, who lived in Ancient Greece, was one of the most outstanding minds of his time. Despite the rudimentary state of many sciences at the time, this man was able to take a new look at the concept of space and largely laid the foundations of modern mathematics. Unfortunately, his life is little known, but we’ve gained some details of Euclid’s biography from the depths of centuries.
Facts about the life & biography of Euclid
- The most ancient of all mathematical treatises are written by him.
- It is not known where Euclid was born, but it is established that the great scientist was engaged in the activity about 2300 years ago in the city of Alexandria. Now Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt.
- He devoted 4 books to conic sections, largely contributing to the development of geometry.
- Euclid’s scientific work called “Elements” is so important for mathematics in general that it has not lost its relevance to this day. By the way, history knows other scientific works with the same name, but the most famous is the book of Euclid.
- Euclid was taught in his youth by the famous Greek philosopher Plato, who also taught Aristotle. Plato himself was taught by Socrates. For anyone familiar with history, these names speak volumes.
- Traditional geometry which is still studied in schools and universities is called “euclidean”.
- When one student Euclid asked him how could geometry be beneficial in life, he ordered to give him three gold coins, and then drove the student away.
- Euclid is regularly attributed to many ancient research papers with no proven authorship.
- In total, there are three geometries in the world — Riemann, Lobachevsky, and Euclid. Euclid’s one is the most common and traditional.
- Authorship of Euclid in some scientific works on optics and astronomy is proven reliable.
- Euclid’s book “Elements” was translated into the Armenian language in the 11th century. That’s the oldest of its translations.