(Εὐκλείδης -- Eukleidis), also known as Euclid of Alexandria, "The Father of Geometry" was a Greek mathematician of the Hellenistic period who flourished in Alexandria, Egypt, almost certainly during the reign of Ptolemy I (323 BC-283 BC). His Elements is the most successful textbook in the history of mathematics. In it, the principles of Euclidean geometry are deduced from a small set of axioms. Euclid's method of proving mathematical theorems by logical deduction from accepted principles remains the backbone of all mathematics, imbuing that field with its characteristic rigor.
Although best-known for its geometric results, the Elements also includes much number theory, in considering the connection between perfect numbers and Mersenne primes, the infinitude of prime numbers, Euclid's lemma on factorization (which leads to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic on uniqueness of prime factorizations), and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers.(read more...)