In the passage beginning on page 372, line 26, and ending on page 373, line 3, quotation marks were inadvertently omitted. The passage-and paragraph following-should read as follows: Second, in his reply to Unguru, van der Waerden clearly explains that he uses the word ''algebra'' ''for expressions
Numbers, Magnitudes, Ratios, and Proportions in Euclid'sElements: How Did He Handle Them?
โ Scribed by Ivor Grattan-Guinness
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 280 KB
- Volume
- 23
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0315-0860
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
โฆ Synopsis
For a century or so much Greek mathematics has been interpreted as algebra in geometric and arithmetical disguise. But especially over the last 25 years some historians of mathematics have raised objections to this interpretation, finding it to be misleading and anachronistic, and even wrong. Accepting these criticisms, I consider Euclid's Elements in this context: if it cannot be read in this algebraic manner, how did he conceive and handle his various types of quantity? The question is not merely of historical interest, for it raises issues about basic relationships between algebra, arithmetic, and geometry.