The biography of the scientist Euclid

Lived for about a year BC. An ancient Greek mathematician, the author of the first of the theoretical treatises in mathematics. Biographical information about Euclid is extremely scarce. Only that his scientific activity proceeded in Alexandria in the 3rd century can be considered reliable. Euclid is the first mathematician of the Alexandria school. From other works in mathematics, it should be noted “On the division of figures”, preserved in the Arabic translation, 4 books “Concular cross -section”, the material of which entered the work of the same name of Apollonius of Pergian, as well as “Porisms”, the idea of ​​which can be obtained from the “mathematical assembly” of Papp of Alexandria.

Euclid is the author of works on astronomy, optics, music, etc.

The most reliable information about the life of Euclid is customary to attribute the little that is given in the comments of Proche to the first book of the beginning of Euclid. Noting that “who wrote on the history of mathematics” did not bring the presentation of the development of this science to the time of Euclid, Procl indicates that Euclid was older than the Platonov circle, but younger than Archimedes and Eratosthenes and “lived during the time of Ptolemy I Soter”, “because Archimedes, who lived under the first one, mentions Euclidean and, in particular, said that Ptolemy asked that Ptolemy asked that Ptolemy asked that Ptolemy asked that Ptolemy asked that Ptolemy asked him, is there a shorter way of studying geometry than the beginning; And he replied that there was no royal path to geometry.

” Additional strokes to the portrait of Euclid can be gleaned at Papp and Stobe. Papp reports that Euclid was soft and amiable with everyone who could at least contribute to the development of mathematical sciences, and Stobeus conveys another joke about Euclid. Having begun to study geometry and dismantling the first theorem, one young man asked Euclid: “What will the benefit from this science be?

The historicity of the story is doubtful, since the same talk about Plato. Some modern authors interpret the statement of Procla - Euclid lived during the time of Ptolemy I Soter - in the sense that Euclid lived at the court of Ptolemy and was the founder of the Alexandrian Museyon. However, it should be noted that this representation was established in Europe in the 17th century, while the medieval authors identified Euclid with the student of Socrates by the philosopher Euclid from Megar.

Arab authors believed that Euclid lived in Damascus and published “Beginnings” of Apollonia there. In general, the amount of data about Euclidean is so scarce that there is a version of the truth, the unexpressed that we are talking about the collective pseudonym for a group of Alexandrian scientists. Books with the same name, which consistently presented all the main facts of geometry and theoretical arithmetic, were previously compiled by Hippocrates of the Khios, Leont and Fevod.

However, Euclid began to replace all these works from everyday life and for more than two millennia remained a basic textbook of geometry. Creating his textbook, Euclid included much of what was created by his predecessors by processing this material and taking it together. The begins consist of thirteen books. The first and some other books are preceded by a list of definitions.

The first book was also preferred by the list of postulates and axiom. As a rule, the postulates set the basic constructions of the eg. The I book studies the properties of triangles and parallelograms; This book is crowned by the famous Pythagoras theorem for rectangular triangles. Book II, ascending to the Pythagoreans, is dedicated to the so -called "geometric algebra." The III and IV books sets out the geometry of circles, as well as the inscribed and described polygons; When working on these books, Euclid could take advantage of the works of Hippocrates of Khios.

The v book introduces a general theory of proportions, built by Evdox Knidsky, and in the VI book it is attached to the theory of similar figures. These books discuss the theorems about proportions and geometric progressions, the method is introduced for finding the largest common divider of two numbers now known as the Euclid algorithm, and even perfect numbers are built, and the infinity of many simple numbers is proved.

In the X book, which is the most voluminous and complex part of the principles, the classification of irrationalities is built; It is possible that its author is the Teetet of Athenian. The XI book contains the basics of stereometry. In the XII book, using the exhaust method, theorems about the relations of the area of ​​circles, as well as the volume of pyramids and cones are proved; The author of this book, in general recognition, is Eudox Knidsky.

Finally, the XIII book is devoted to the construction of five correct polyhedra; It is believed that part of the constructions was developed by Theetet of Athens. In the manuscripts that have reached us, two more were added to these thirteen books. XIV book belongs to the Alexandria Gypsyklu approx. Sofia in Constantinople The beginning of the VI century.

The beginnings provide a common basis for the subsequent geometric treatises of Archimedes, Apollonia and other ancient authors; The proposals proven in them are considered well -known. The Comment of Procla to the first book, as well as Papp commentary to the X book in Arabic translation, has been preserved. From ancient authors, the commentary tradition goes to the Arabs, and then to medieval Europe.In the creation and development of science of the New Age began, they also played an important ideological role.

They remained a model of a mathematical treatise, strictly and systematically setting out the main provisions of a particular mathematical science.