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Euclid's Elements

c. 300 BCE · 4th century BCE

Euclid's Elements is a mathematical treatise in 13 books written about 300 BCE by the Greek mathematician Euclid, the oldest surviving large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics. From definitions, postulates and common notions it proves theorems of plane and solid geometry and number theory, among them the Pythagorean theorem and the infinity of the primes. Translated into Arabic and Latin in the Middle Ages and first printed in 1482, it has been called the most successful textbook ever written; Greek manuscripts survive in the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Library.

Euclid's Elements
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
c. 300 BCE
Where
Alexandria
Credited to
Euclid · Ptolemaic Empire

NoteIt is largely a compilation of earlier Greek mathematics, and how much of it Euclid wrote himself is debated.

Led toHeliocentrismc. 270 BCEAstrolabe4th century CEAlgebra825Book of Optics1011–1021Calculus1665–1666

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Mentioned in 1 profile

Ancient GreekLiterature

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Euclid's Elements. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/euclids-elements
MLA
“Euclid's Elements.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/euclids-elements. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Euclid's Elements.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/euclids-elements.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Euclid's Elements’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/euclids-elements (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻