Euclid Biography | Animated Video | Father of Geometry

The Greek mathematician and founder of geometry Euclid, who was often referred to as Euclid of Alexandria, distinguished him from Euclid of Megara, was born likely around 325 BC. It is generally believed from a detailed biography given by Arabian authors that Euclid was born in Tyre, but his postulation is also fictitious. Another opinion was that if Euclid was from Alexandria and taught there, he would have known of Serapium of Alexandria and the Library of Alexandria. But Euclid arrived in Alexandria about 10 years after Alexander the Great who founded the city passed. Therefore, Euclid arrived in Alexandria in the year 322 BC. Proclus mentioned in his commentary of the elements that Euclid was of Plato's persuasion and put together the elements which he collated from prior work of Eudesox of Syndax and that of several of Plato's popules. Proclus also stated that once, when Ptolemy queried if there was a shorter path to learning geometry than the elements of Euclid, Euclid's reply was that there is no royal road to geometry. Many have questioned this anecdote by Proclus since the story is similar to that told about Menachemus and Alexander the Great. Several of the results in elements originated from earlier mathematicians and were presented in a single logical and coherent framework by Euclid which became of his accomplishments. Euclid made it easy to use the reference. He also made a system of rigorous mathematical proofs easy and they remain the basis of mathematics 23 centuries later. Among those early mathematicians whom Euclid viewed on their results are Hippocrates of Chios and Teidios who was the latest compiler before Euclid. Teidios had a textbook used in the academy and thought to have been used by Aristotle. The earliest remaining copies of the elements did not mention Euclid. Instead, they mention that they are from the edition of Teion or of the lectures of Teion. Also, the text held by the Vatican mentioned no author. Still, Proclus provides the only reference that ascribes the elements to Euclid. Although Euclid doubtlessly grew his work from his predecessors, yet the whole design of his work was of his own writing, culminating in the creating of the five regular solids which are known as the platonic solids. The older elements at once were superseded and then forgotten by Euclid's new postulation. The common belief was that the elements concerned only geometry. Still, this misconception originated from those who read not more than the books 1 through 5, which covers only the elementary plane geometry. Euclid had understood that building a logical and rigorous geometry and mathematics depended on the foundation. Euclid's foundation started with his book 1 with 23 definitions. Euclid called postulates and another five untested assumptions that he called conventional notions. He then went on to prove them in the subjects of book 1 as elementary theorems of triangles, parallelogram, and Pythagorean theorems. In his book 2, Euclid stated algebraic identities as theorems of equivalent geometric figures. The book has been called geometric algebra. It also contains the section which divides a line into two parts. The ratio of the larger and smaller segments is of equal measure to the ratio of the original line to the more significant segments. Book 2 also makes general the Pythagorean theorem into arbitrary angles which makes it equivalent to the law of cosines. Euclid dealt with properties of circles in his third book and also stated the construction of regular polygons, particularly the pentagon, in his fourth book. Whereas, his book 5 diverted from plain geometry to expound the general theorem of proportion and ratios that are attributed to Proclus. Although Euclid's fifth book can be read independently of the rest of his other elements, its solution to irrational numbers problems is essential to his latter writings. It was on this he built the foundation of a geometric theory of numbers until in the late 19th century when the analytic philosophy was developed. Due to his several books' unevenness and how the mathematics levels varied, it sometimes gives the impression that Euclid was only an editor of treatises written by other mathematicians. There are some truth elements except that it is easy to distinguish his own postulations from those who were adoptions from the works of his predecessors. Euclid's work was considered by his contemporaries to be the final and authoritative of the elements. During the reign of Ptolemy I in Alexandria, Euclid was active. His elements is one of the most influential works of history in mathematics. It became the main text for teaching mathematics from when it was published until the 19th to early 20th century. Euclid's deduced theorems in his elements are now known as Euclid's geometry. He also wrote on conic sections, spherical geometry, numbered theorem, perspective, and mathematical rigor. In C. 270, Euclid died, presumably in Alexandria, from the only other key reference to Euclid in the purpose of Alexandria, C. 320 AD. It is mentioned that Apollonius spent a very long time with Euclid pupils at Alexandria, and it was thus that he acquired such a scientific habit of thoughts. Some researchers propose that Euclid was not a historical personage and that his works were written by a team of mathematicians who coined Euclid's name from that of Euclid Megara. This was due to the lack of biographical information on Euclid when there are several biographies on several significant Greek mathematicians, centuries before and after Euclid's. However, there is little evidence of this theory, which is not accepted by scholars. Euclid's geometrical systems described in the elements were known for long simply as geometry and considered the only geometry. However, in the modern day, it is now distinguished from other non-Euclidean geometries discovered in the 19th century. In 1997, a fragment of Euclid's second book of the elements, the Papyrus Oxyhynchus 29, was unearthed by Hansen Grenfell in Oxyhynchus. The piece contained the statement of the fifth proposition of his book two, which as translated by T. L. Heath reads, If a straight line be cut into equal and unequal segments, the rectangle contained by the unequal segments of the whole together with the square on the straight line between the points of section is equal to the square on the half. In his honor, the European Space Agency's Euclid spacecraft was named after Euclid. Thank you very much for watching our videos. 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