Euclid compiles the Elements at Alexandria
- Date
- c. 300 BCE
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Egypt (Alexandria)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
Around 300 BCE, working in Alexandria under the early Ptolemies, the mathematician Euclid composed the Elements, a treatise in thirteen books that organised the geometry and number theory of the Greek world into a single deductive system.
Beginning from a small set of definitions, postulates and common notions, Euclid derived hundreds of theorems through rigorous logical proof, covering plane and solid geometry, ratio and proportion, and the theory of numbers including a proof of the infinitude of primes. The work synthesised earlier mathematics from Pythagoras, Eudoxus, Theaetetus and others into a clear, comprehensive whole. The Elements became the most influential mathematical text ever written and the world's longest-used textbook, shaping the teaching of geometry and the very idea of axiomatic proof for more than two thousand years. It stands as the foremost monument of Hellenistic science and of Alexandria's role as the intellectual capital of the age.
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Empires active in c. 300 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Maurya Empire322 BCE – 185 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Odrysian Kingdom480 BCE – 46 CE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE – 146 BCE
- Seleucid Empire312 BCE – 63 BCE
Related science, technology & invention events
- Eratosthenes measures the circumference of the Earthc. 240 BCE
- Aristotle founds the Lyceum and systematises the sciencesc. 335 BCE
- Wootz crucible steel developed in South India and Sri Lankac. 300 BCE
- Construction of the Aqua Appia, Rome's first aqueduct312 BCE
- Archimedes formulates the principle of buoyancyc. 250 BCE
- Hippocratic medicine separates illness from the divinec. 440–420 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
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