John Carlos Baez on Nostr: Euclid's original text on geometry is almost as hard to reconstruct as the Big Bang. ...
Euclid's original text on geometry is almost as hard to reconstruct as the Big Bang. All we have is echos of echos.
The oldest surviving copy of Euclid’s book, handwritten on parchment, dates back to 888 AD. That's old - but it's over 1100 years later than Euclid!
In 1897, some fragments of the book were found in an ancient garbage dump in Egypt. These date back to 300 AD. That's really old - but still about 600 years after Euclid.
How did we get Euclid's Elements? This 'family tree' created by the biochemist Herbert M. Sauro begins to answer that question. It's pretty damned interesting.
The earliest transmission of Euclid from Greece to western Europe went via Arabic, and I'm interested in this stage. At that time western Europe was like the barbarian boondocks, far from the center of the civilized world. Unfortunately Sauro just has one entry saying "Arabic (~800 AD)" for what is actually a complicated process. I'm not scolding him - I just want more!
Luckily more is known about Arabic translations of Euclid. There's a lot already in Heath's famous 1908 translation of the Elements. When I asked around on the History of Science and Mathematics Stackexhange, the nice folks there found two family trees besides Sauro's:
https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/18090/what-is-the-family-tree-of-translations-of-euclids-elements
If I had time, I might try to combine all these family trees into one huge beautiful chart.
For more by Herbert M. Sauro, go to his website:
https://euclid.analogmachine.org/early-history
The oldest surviving copy of Euclid’s book, handwritten on parchment, dates back to 888 AD. That's old - but it's over 1100 years later than Euclid!
In 1897, some fragments of the book were found in an ancient garbage dump in Egypt. These date back to 300 AD. That's really old - but still about 600 years after Euclid.
How did we get Euclid's Elements? This 'family tree' created by the biochemist Herbert M. Sauro begins to answer that question. It's pretty damned interesting.
The earliest transmission of Euclid from Greece to western Europe went via Arabic, and I'm interested in this stage. At that time western Europe was like the barbarian boondocks, far from the center of the civilized world. Unfortunately Sauro just has one entry saying "Arabic (~800 AD)" for what is actually a complicated process. I'm not scolding him - I just want more!
Luckily more is known about Arabic translations of Euclid. There's a lot already in Heath's famous 1908 translation of the Elements. When I asked around on the History of Science and Mathematics Stackexhange, the nice folks there found two family trees besides Sauro's:
https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/18090/what-is-the-family-tree-of-translations-of-euclids-elements
If I had time, I might try to combine all these family trees into one huge beautiful chart.
For more by Herbert M. Sauro, go to his website:
https://euclid.analogmachine.org/early-history