What is known about Euclid?

Answer 1

Euclid, the Greek mathematician, lived for about 60 years (~325-265 BC). Except that he was probably born in Greece and educated in Athens, nothing whatsoever is known of his early life, appearance, parents, family, or education. Later known as the Alexandrian Mathematician and the Father of Geometry, he taught at the university in Alexandria, Egypt. While at the university, he compiled his famous 13 volume treatise called Elements that made references to the geometry and other mathematics known in his day. Elements, which is based mostly on the works of other Greek mathematicians, is still the basis of the geometry taught in schools to this day. He used axioms (accepted mathematical truths) to develop a deductive system of proof, which he wrote in his textbook Elements. This book proved to be a great contribution to scientific thinking and includes Euclid's proof of the Pythagorean theorem. Euclid's first three postulates, with which he begins his Elements, are familiar to anyone who has taken geometry: 1) it is possible to draw a straight line between any two points; 2) it is possible to produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line; and 3) a circle may be described with any center and radius.