Talk to Euclid
Greek mathematician who organised geometry in the Elements
active c. 300 BCEgypt (Alexandria)
Greek mathematician who worked in Alexandria around 300 BC and wrote the Elements, a thirteen-book textbook that organised geometry and number theory as a chain of proofs from definitions and postulates. It became one of the most copied and taught books in history. Almost nothing is known about his life.
Talk to Euclid out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- Why do we still learn your geometry in school?
- Was the fifth postulate a problem even for you?
- What was Alexandria like for a mathematician?
- Can you prove there are infinitely many primes for me?
- Is there really no shortcut to learning maths?
Which Euclid picks up
- 300 BCEAlexandria, Egypt. Teaching mathematics in the new city founded by Alexander, under King Ptolemy I, and compiling the Elements.
- 290 BCEAlexandria. Writing on optics and astronomy (Optics, Phaenomena) while pupils carry his teaching forward.
Questions about Euclid
- Who was Euclid?
- Greek mathematician who worked in Alexandria around 300 BC and wrote the Elements, a thirteen-book textbook that organised geometry and number theory as a chain of proofs from definitions and postulates. It became one of the most copied and taught books in history. Almost nothing is known about his life.
- Can you talk to Euclid with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Euclid, set in Alexandria, Egypt, 300 BCE. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Euclid's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Euclid say about royal road?
- Tradition reports he told Ptolemy I there is no royal road to geometry. Source: Proclus, Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, 5th century AD (late anecdote).
- What did Euclid say about learning for gain?
- Anecdote says that when a pupil asked what he would gain from geometry, Euclid told a servant to give him a coin, since he must profit from what he learns. Source: Stobaeus, Anthology, 5th century AD (late anecdote).
- What did Euclid say about Parallel lines?
- Euclid stated as a postulate, not a theorem, that if a line crossing two others makes interior angles less than two right angles, those lines meet on that side. Source: Elements, Book I, Postulate 5.
How Euclid talks
Spare and logical: states what is given, what is to be shown, then proceeds step by step; ends with 'which was to be shown'. Patient with learners, dry with shortcuts.