Euclid's Elements
Geometry is rebuilt from five postulates, and the method matters more than the geometry.
- When
- Known to
- ± 20 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Around 300 BCE Euclid organises existing mathematics into a deductive system: definitions, postulates, and theorems each proved from what came before. The content was largely known; the architecture was not. The Elements is arguably the most influential textbook ever written, used essentially unchanged for over two millennia, and it establishes the axiomatic method as the model of rigorous argument for mathematics, physics and philosophy alike.