The
publication was used in schools up to 1903. Euclid also wrote many other works
including Data, On Division, Phaenomena, Optics and the lost books Conics and
Porisms. Today, Euclid has lost much of the godlike status he once held. In his
time, many of his peers attacked him for being too thorough and including
self-evident proofs, such as one side of a triangle cannot be longer than the
sum of the other two sides. Today, most mathematicians attack Euclid for the
exact opposite reason that he was not thorough enough. In Elements, there are
missing areas which were forced to be filled in by following mathematicians. In
addition, several errors and questionable ideas have been found. The most
glaring one deals with his fifth postulate, also known as the parallel
postulate.
The proposition states that for a straight line and a point not on
the line, there is exactly one line that passes through the point parallel to
the original line. Euclid was unable to prove this statement and needing it for
his proofs, so he assumed it as true. Future mathematicians could not accept
such a statement was unproveable and spent centuries looking for an answer. Only
with the onset of non- Euclidean geometry, that replaces the statement with
postulates that assume different numbers of parallel lines, has the statement
been generally accepted as necessary. However, despite these problems, Euclid
holds the distinction of being one of the first persons to attempt to
standardize mathematics and set it upon a foundation of proofs. His work acted
as a springboard for future generations.
Words: 803
|
