Euclid

euTaylor Johnson 10-23-11 5th period Geometry Euclids Affect on Geometry The geometry that we simply know from high school is euclidean geometry, which goes back to the oblige got Elements of Geometry written by Euclid in about 300 BC, only after the time of Alexander the Great. But Euclid did not jet plane his geometry; he collected and systematized the geometry that was already know in his time. Plato, who lived a couple of generations before Euclid, clearly knew a great remove of geometry. He probably learned it from the Pythagoreans, a secret partnership of mystic mathematicians who were active in Greece at that time. If Euclid didnt invent geometry, what was so important about him? Euclid perfected the Greek notion of a system of knowledge. Egyptian geometry was just a grab-bag of tricks for getting answers. euclidean geometry has structure. Euclids proofs argon the first known examples of what we might call go around argument: They arent intend to convi nce this person or that person, military reserve use of whatever assumptions that the audience is willing to grant. Euclids assumptions are intend to be unassailable by anyone, whether they are present or not, and his proofs are intended to be universally convincing.

With Euclid, reason becomes imposing: exclusively reasonable people must come to the corresponding conclusions, whether they want to or not. This idea changed the world. Egyptian and Babylonian geometry texts are little more than lists of facts and formulas. But Euclid had not just balance together a set of facts, he had assembled those facts into a structure. every(prenominal) the terms were defined, all the assump tions listed, and all the other statements w! ere derived rigorously from those assumptions. By comparison all other fields of human popular opinion were little more than grab-bags of ideas and tricks. The assumptions which are called postulates, are examples of what became known as self-evident truth. In other words, once these propositions were understood, they could not be denied....If you want to get a full essay, hunting lodge it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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