Euclid Elements and the axiomatic method
Elementos de Euclides y el método axiomático
- Date
- c. 300 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Alexandria, Egypt
- Credited to
- Euclid of Alexandria
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Systematisation of Greek geometry and arithmetic in thirteen books deduced from definitions, postulates and common notions. It fixed the model of what a proof is and was the most used textbook in history.
The fifth postulate (on parallels) was questioned since antiquity, and its independence was only proved in the 19th century.
What it led to
- the axiomatic method
- non-Euclidean geometry (through the fifth postulate)
- Hilbert's Grundlagen
- number theory
Built on
Made possible
- Euclid's Optics: geometry of the visual conec. 300 BCE
- Fundamental theorem of arithmeticc. 300 BCE-1801
- geometrical optics
- architecture
- cartography