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Images from Amazon.com.
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The primary reference for this presentation is The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, Translated From the Text of Heiberg with Introduction and Commentary, by Sir Thomas Heath, Cambridge University Press 1908 (with a 2nd Edition Revised with Additions appearing in 1926). Seen here are the reprinted versions of this work which are currently available from Dover Publications.
The Preface of Heath's translation of Euclid says about The Elements on page vii:
| "It is one of the noblest monuments of antiquity; no mathematician worthy of the name can afford not to know Euclid, the real Euclid as distinct from any revised or rewritten versions which will serve for schoolboys or engineers." |
Euclid's Elements of Geometry has been published in over a thousand different editions. This makes it number two in terms of editions published, being only second to the Bible [Stewart, page 19]. It was originally written about 2,300 years ago. More than any other single work, Euclid's Elements has influenced what mathematics is and how it is done. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the history of the book The Elements, not the mathematics of The Elements.
Go to the next section: Geometry Before Euclid.
Last revised November 14, 2009.