يوقليدوس .. كتاب المائة الأوائل

Euclid

EUCLID

300 BC

Few figures on this list have gained as lasting fame as that of the Greek mathematician Euclid (Euclides). Although many of these personalities were known more than him during their existence, such as Napoleon, Alexander the Great, or Martin Luther, with the passage of time, his fame exceeded their fame.

Despite his fame, the details of his life are almost unknown, and what we know is that he practiced his activity as a professor in Alexandria and Egypt around the year 300 BC, but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. We do not even know in which continent he was born, let alone the name of the city, and although he wrote many books and some of them still remain, but his place in history is based on his book in the science of geometry, which is (Elements).

The importance of the Elements book does not lie in the engineering theories it presents, because most of the theories in that book were known by Euclid, in addition to many proofs. But the great feat of Euclid is the arrangement and formulation of the overall plan of the book, and this includes in the first place.

The first is to choose a set of axioms and hypotheses that are recognized as correct, then arrange the theories in a way that makes each theory follow the other logically, and when necessary, the missing links and proofs, and it is worth noting that the book (Elements) was originally presented as a work in plane geometry and spatial geometry, but it contains a large section From Algebra and Number Theory.

The Elements book has been in use for more than two thousand years, and it is the most successful textbook undisputed. It was written in Greek and translated into many languages, so the first edition appeared around the year 1482 AD, only thirty years after the invention of printing, and since that time more than a thousand editions of that book have been published.

The book (The Elements) is a factor in training the human mind on correct rational judgment, more than any of Aristotle's articles on logic. It is a live example of deductive synthesis, and it has attracted many thinkers since its appearance.

It is fair to say that the emergence of Euclid's book was a factor in the emergence of modern science. Science is more than collecting a set of accurate observations, rulings and general principles. The great achievements of modern science come from collecting experiments with practical tests on the one hand, and careful analysis and deductive trials on the other hand.

We do not know for sure why science appeared and flourished in Europe before China, but there is no doubt that this was not by chance. It is certain that the roles played by some personalities such as Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were of great importance, but there are factors behind these personalities, which is the existence of the scientific background that It was created by Greek rationalism, in addition to the mathematical knowledge left behind by Greece as a legacy of human civilization.

It is worth mentioning that China, although it was technologically ahead of Europe for several centuries, did not possess the theoretical structure of mathematical sciences, as it was in Europe. As it did not appear in China, any mathematician Qalidus, and the Chinese had a good knowledge of practical geometry, but their knowledge of geometry did not go beyond this field and did not reach the formulation of geometry in a deductive way.

As for the Europeans, the idea of ​​the existence of multiple physical principles from which everything can be deduced seemed not alien to European thought, due to the presence of scientists like Euclid. In general, the Europeans did not consider Euclid's geometry as a purely abstract system, but rather considered his theories and hypotheses true facts for the world around them.

The influence of Euclid on Isaac Newton was very great and clear, because Newton wrote his great book (The Principles) in a geometrical form similar to . Great style of Euclid in his book (Elements).