Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Euclid's Elements


Euclid's Elements by AU Euclid (Author), Dana Densmore (Editor), Thomas L. Heath (Translator). All Thirteen Books on One Quantity! Inexperienced Lion Press has ready a new one-quantity version of the T.L. Heath s translation of the thirteen books of Euclid s Elements. In keeping with Inexperienced Lion s design commitment, diagrams have been placed on every spread for convenient reference while working through the proofs; operating heads on every web page indicate both Euclid s ebook quantity and proposition numbers for that page; and enough house for notes is allowed between propositions and round diagrams. The all-new index has constructed into it a glossary of Euclid s Greek terms.

This edition of Euclid's Elements is a really commonly used one at Thomas Aquinas School in California, a faculty the place the Components is a required course. College students begin the study of the Parts within the freshman year and proceed to explore its that means in later Mathematics and Philosophy.


This historic work is a masterpiece of the human mind and a wonderful example of how a science could also be constructed off of proper starting principles. This edition presents an excellent translation of that work in a quality binding.

One of the crucial important features of this version of Euclid is the truth that the diagrams are reprinted on extra pages so that one may see them as he studies the texts of the assorted propositions. There isn't any need to continually flip back and forth to look at diagrams (an essential part of following the movement of the argument within the proposition for many students). Most other printings of the Elements (a minimum of the ones that I've seen), lack this very useful feature. The pages are also large sufficient to add some notes while working by the props.

Fairly simply, this is a good version of one of many biggest masterpieces of the human mind. No lover of Geometry, of Arithmetic, or of truth basically, ought to be without this or some other faithful translation of this foundational text.

This edition of Parts put out by a publisher called Greenland was superb. The font size, text layout, figures adjoining to propositions, and extensive margins make this e book very handy to follow the logic behind every proposition. I used to own the three volume version put out by Dover but this one beats it by leaps and bounds.

Of course Euclid's Elements, to my mind, ranks as one of many majesterial achievements of the human mind. I observe the format of one proposition every week until I full the cycle. Then take a respite for a year or two and repeat the exercise.

In 1963 during a practice journey from Bangalore to Bombay (via.Poona), India, I used to be reading Dr. Radhakrishnan's Indian Philosophy. Upon noticing this an elderly gentleman admonished me to cease wasting time and go along with one thing he known as "the great Eee-u-clid's ideas". He then gave me among the best lectures in Western Philosophy that I can remember. Euclid, he mentioned, is way over geometry. This was my introduction to Euclid other than High Faculty geometry. This gentleman told me that he had written down each propositon and proof from volumes obtainable at the goverment Public Library in Cubbon Park, Bangalore. He was a clerk at the library who had no formal education. Everytime I open the Elements I consider Mr. Gururaj. Such is the wonder and energy of Euclid. 

Euclid's Elements 
 AU Euclid (Author), Dana Densmore (Editor), Thomas L. Heath (Translator)
527 pages
Green Lion Press (August 20, 2002)

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