Euclid the master of masters was called the father of geometry

The early life of Euclid is not known. He was a Greek and had his education in Athens. Later he moved to Alexandria where he is said to have become the “first professor of geometry” in a university founded by Ptolemy. He is primarily known for his works.

          Euclid cannot be called the originator or father of geometry, because geometry was slowly developing in Greece for more than a thousand years before him. He had several famous predecessors like Hippocrates of Chios, Thales, and the Pythagoreans.

          Euclid was a great compiler of the works of his predecessors and was a greater creative mathematician. The elements of Geometry were his great work. It was more than a compendium of existing geometrical knowledge. 

In fact, this work was a classic textbook for generations and trained the youth of the whole civilized world in exact reasoning. Archimedes, Galileo, Newton and a host of other great mathematicians were deeply influenced by this work. So Euclid is rightly described as the master of masters. His book includes algebra and arithmetic too.

Euclid became angry with those who asked him; 1) what is the use of geometry? Or 2) is there any easy way of learning geometry? There are two familiar anecdotes to prove this. Once a student, after learning the first theorem, asked Euclid: Sir! What shall k gain by learning this? Euclid ordered his servant to give him an Obol(a Greek coin) because he wanted a gain.

Euclid geometry is essentially two – dimensional. It is erroneous in terms of the spherical geometry used by astronomers and navigators. The error is because he proceeded on the assumption that the earth is flat. He said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. 

In navigation the shortest distance line. In navigation, the shortest distance is not a straight line but an arc, technically known as a geodesic. Any two geodesics always enclose a space.

Yet, Euclid’s element is the most famous mathematical treatise of all time and was widely used by the Arabs and medieval Europe. As far as elementary geometry is concerned, it is the only example of a textbook that has remained, serviceable for twenty-two centuries until today.