Elements. Book 1-3

[873 A.H. (1466 A.D)]

de Beer MS 08

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Preceded by Thales (624-546 BC), thought to be the ‘first true mathematician’; Pythagoras (c. 570-500 BC) – the equation, a² + b² = c², is named after him – and many more, Euclid (ca. 330-275 BC) made an enormous contribution to the history of mathematics with his incomparable work Elements. It is a book of thirteen chapters dealing with the subjects of geometry, number theory and irrational numbers. The content is not his own work but Euclid is credited with recording all extant mathematical knowledge of his time in a comprehensive, clear and logical format. On display is a page from an Arabic manuscript of Euclid’s Elements. The work has annotations in Arabic, Persian and English and dates from the 15th century.