Timeline for Egyptian origin of Euclid's axiomatisation of geometry
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 31 at 12:14 | comment | added | Will Orrick | I think it needs to be emphasized that (1) there is a two and a half century gap separating Thales from Euclid, (2) many of the stories told about Thales (and about Pythagoras) have a legendary quality, (3) our knowledge of Greek mathematics is extremely fragmentary, (4) our knowledge of Egyptian mathematics is even more so. | |
| Jul 30 at 17:38 | history | edited | Paul Chubinski | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 30 at 17:27 | comment | added | Paul Chubinski | I did not intend to argue that, but my source is more suggestive than oppositional, and it suggests that Thales was one of several people, including Euclid, who can be credited with treating applied mathematics more systemically and thereby enabling Euclid to bring those recordings closer to an axiomatization, which is what is interesting. Thales is credited with bringing Egyptian mathematics into Greece: plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics Is the axiomatization Egyptian in origin? No, but are some sources for Euclid's increasingly axiomatic treatment Egyptian? Yes. | |
| Jul 30 at 12:01 | comment | added | Will Orrick | If you intend to argue that Thales brought an axiomatic treatment of geometry back from Egypt, your source says the opposite: "In The Elements, Euclid collected, organized, and proved geometric ideas that were already used as applied techniques." Thales is mentioned shortly afterwards, but as someone who, like Euclid, enquired into why things were true and who "became a celebrity in Egypt" for doing so. Egyptian mathematical practice is explicitly contrasted with that of Thales and Euclid. This is very much the standard story, not Arnold's version. | |
| Jul 29 at 1:49 | history | edited | Paul Chubinski | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| S Jul 29 at 1:48 | review | First answers | |||
| Jul 29 at 7:11 | |||||
| S Jul 29 at 1:48 | history | answered | Paul Chubinski | CC BY-SA 4.0 |