Euclid — Wellsprings

Euclid

? · Alexandria

Euclid (fl. c. 300 BCE) was a Greek mathematician active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter. He is best known for the Elements, a thirteen-book treatise that systematized geometry, number theory, and proportion through axioms, definitions, and deductive proofs, and which served as a foundational mathematics text for over two millennia. Beyond the Elements, he wrote works on astronomy and applied geometry, including the Phaenomena, a treatise on spherical astronomy, and the Data, which examines what can be inferred about geometric figures from given conditions. Almost nothing is reliably known about his life; the traditional date places his floruit around 300 BCE, with his work centered at Alexandria.

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AlexandriaEgypt

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Active at Alexandria, by tradition under Ptolemy I (Proclus, Commentary on Euclid I, 68); fl. c. 300 BCE. Wrote the Elements.

About Alexandria

Alexandria is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.

Alexandria · -300

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