Euclid

Not many people are fortunate to have a lasting fame as Euclid, Greek geometer great.Although during his lifetime such figures as Napoleon, Martin Luther, Alexander the Great, much more famous than Euclid's, but in the long run fame may beat all those who called it.
In addition to his fame, almost no detailed information about Euclid's life that can be known. For example, we know he's been active as a teacher in Alexandria, Egypt, around the year 300 BC, but when he was born and when he died really dark. In fact, we do not know on what continent and what city he was born. Although he wrote several books and some of them still left, its position in the history lies mainly in the great textbooknya of geometry called The Elements.
The significance of the book The Elements does not lie in the statement of personal formulas he gave. Almost all the theories contained in the book was never written before, and also can be verified. Euclid's contribution lies in the way of setting materials and the problems and formulation of overall development planning books. Stuck here, most notably, the selection of the arguments and calculations-calculations, for example, about a possible draw a straight line between two points. After that, carefully and cautiously, so he set the proposition easily understood by the people afterwards. Whenever necessary, she provides instructions on how to solve things unresolved and develop experiments to the problem of missing. It should be noted that the book The Elements other than primarily a development of a strict geometry, also in addition contains the parts about following extensive algebraic summation theory.
Book The Elements is a standard textbook of more than 2000 years and no doubt is the most successful textbook ever devised humans. So much so that the composition of his Euclid by its shape alone is able to put aside all the textbooks that have constrained previous one and who never ignored again. Originally written in Greek, then the book The Elements was translated into various languages. The first issue appeared in 1482, about 30 years before the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. Since the invention of the printing machine and diterbitkanlah in thousands of diverse style edition.
As a tool the human mind logic trainer, the book The Elements is much more influential than all the treatises of Aristotle on logic. The book is a complete example about the structure of deductive and is a fruit of thought of all the amazing creations of the human brain.
It is fair to say that Euclid's book is an important factor for the growth of modern science.Science is not just a collection of observations that are accurate and not mere generalizations sharp and wise. Results of a torn modern science came from a combination of empirical investigation work and experiments on the one hand, with careful analysis and conclusions that have a strong base on the other.
We are still wondering what science because it appeared in Europe and not in China, but it's safe if we assume that it is not merely a matter because of an accident. Indeed, the role driven by brilliant people like Newton, Galileo and Copernicus have very important meaning. However, there must be reason-musababnya why these people appeared in Europe. Maybe all the historical factors that cause the most striking what influence Europe in terms of science is a Greek rationalism, along with the mathematical knowledge inherited from the Greeks to Europe.It should be noted that the Chinese would - even though many centuries the technology far more advanced than Europe - have never had a theoretical mathematical structure as that belongs to Europe. No one was Chinese mathematician who has a relationship with Euclid. Chinese people a great learning curve about the science of practical geometry, but geometry knowledge they were never formulated in a scheme that contains conclusions.
For the Europeans, the assumption that there are some basic principles of physics that it all came, it seems reasonable because they have the example of Euclid who was behind them. In general, Europeans do not assume Euclidean geometry is just an abstract system, but they are convinced that the idea of Euclid - and the theory itself - it is truly a reality.
Euclid influence of Sir Isaac Newton was very obvious, since Newton's book Principia kesohornya The geometry form, similar to the Elements. Various scientists tried to identify with Euclid by showing how all of their conclusions logically derived originally from the original assumptions. Nothing except what is done by mathematicians such as Russell, Whitehead and the philosopher Spinoza.
Now, mathematicians have understood that the geometry of Euclid. is not the only system of geometry that is so basic and firm grip and can be planned well, they also understand that during the last 150 years many people who define the geometry rather than a la Euclid.Actually, since Einstein's relativity theory accepted people, scientists realized that Euclidean geometry is not always true in the application of the real horizon problem. In the proximity of some "black hole" and a neutron star - for example - where gravity is in a high degree, Euclidean geometry does not give a precise picture of the world, or do not show the proper description of the overall space. However, these examples are rare, because in many cases employment estimates Euclid provides the possibility of approaching reality. The progress of human science these days does not reduce either the intellectual efforts of Euclid and the significance of his position in history.