EUCLID

(E£ucleidés), of Alexandria, a distinguished Greek mathematician, who flourished about 300 B.c. His Stoic he i a (Elements of Geometry), in thirteen books, are still extant, and form the most usual introduction to the study of geometry. The work was known to the Arabs, translations of it having appeared in the time of Harunal-Rashid and of Al-Mamun. It was translated from the Arabic into Latin by Adelard of Bath, and an English translation from the Latin, by Sir Henry Billing sley, appeared in 1570. The Oxford Edition (1703) was for long the only complete edition of Huclid’s works. In the Hlements, Euclid made use of the material of earlier mathematicians such as Hippo crates of Chios, Then dins, Hndoxus and Theaetetus, but in effect the work was his own, so perfect and complete that only in the Jast century was any attempt made to supersede it. Other extant works of Euclid’s are the Data, containing ninety-four propositions, the Phenomena, on the geometrical aspects of Astronomy, the Optics and the Hlements of Music. The severity and accuracy of Euclid’s methods of demonstration have as_a whole never been surpa ed. —Cf. Sir T. L. Heath, The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements.