Abstract
Alexandria was founded where the Nile meets the Mediterranean by Alexander the Great, in the year 331 B.C. The city became the capital of Egypt, and rapidly developed into one of the richest and most beautiful cities in the world. That is to say, in the world known to the antique.
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However, when Euclid’s Elements were reintroduced to Europe towards the end of the Middle Ages, this confusion of the two Euclids did happen. And some historians espouse the theory that Euclid was a pseudonym inspired by this dialogue and used by a group of mathematicians working in Alexandria, much in the same way as the name Nicolas Bourbaki has been used by a group of French mathematicians in our days.
An alternative translation from the Greek original would be:“A point is that which is indivisible into parts”.
Meaning one and only one
Gauss wrote, according to [16] : “If I could prove that a rectilinear triangle is possible the contents of which is greater than any given area, I am in a position to prove perfectly rigorous the whole of geometry.”
As the author is unfortunately unable to read Cicero in the original language, which is of course Latin, the quote from his writings is based upon two translations. Mainly I rely on a translation into Norwegian made for Viggo Brun, and used in his excellent book [2] . But I have also supplemented the translation with elements from the one rendered in Michael Grant, [9]
Of course an exact subdivision is not essential, but mainly serves to make the construction esthetically appealing.
René Descartes, 1596–1650, was an important French philosopher and mathematician. He is given credit for having initiated the introduction of algebra into geometry. The name Cartesian coordinate system is after him.
Some put her year of birth at 370 A.D., but M. Dzielska argues persuasively for 355 in [4].
Serapis, or Osarapis was the dead Apis worshiped as Osiris. He was the lord of the Nether world, and the Serapis cult incorporated elements of the Greek Gods into the traditional Egyptian ones.
There are four more saints by the name Cyril, among them the monk who designed the Russian alphabet.
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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Holme, A. (2002). Geometry in the Hellenistic Era. In: Geometry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04720-0_4
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