Author:
Wardhaugh, Benjamin, 1979- author.
ImprintPrinceton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 2021.
Imprint2021
Descriptionx, 403 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Note:"Originally published in the English language in 2020 by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. under the title The Book of Wonders: The Many Lives of Euclid's Elements."--Title page verso.
Note:Alexandria: the geometer and the king -- Elephantine: pot shards -- Hypsicles: the fourteenth book -- Theon of Alexandria: editing the Elements -- Stephanos the scribe: Euclid in Byzantium -- Al-Hajjaj: Euclid in Baghdad -- Adelard: the Latin Euclid -- Erhard Ratdolt: printing the Elements -- Marget Seymer her hand: owning the Elements -- Edward Bernard: Minerva in Oxford -- Plato: the philosopher and the slave -- Proclus Diadochus: Minerva in Athens -- Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Wisdom and her daughters -- Rabbi Levi ben Gershom: Euclid in Hebrew -- Christoph Clavius: the Jesuit Elements -- Xu Guangqi: Euclid in China -- Blame not our author: geometry on stage -- Baruch Spinoza: the geometrical manner -- Anne Lister: improving the mind -- Petechonsis: taxing and overtaxing -- Dividing the monochord -- Hyginus: surveying the land -- Muhammad Abu al-Wafa al-Buzjani: dividing the square -- Lady Geometria: depicting the liberal arts -- Piero della Francesca: seeing in perspective -- Euclid Speidell: teaching and learning -- Isaac Newton: mathematical principles -- Mary Fairfax: Euclid and the straitjacket -- François Peyrard: Manuscript 190 -- Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevskii: parallels -- Maggie and Tom: the torture of the mind -- Simson in Urdu: the Euclidean empire -- His modern rivals -- Thomas Little Heath: the true con amore spirit -- Max Ernst: Euclid's mask -- Euclidean designs -- Lambda: curved space, dark energy.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-387) and index.
Note:Wardhaugh explains how Euclid's text journeyed from antiquity to the Renaissance, introducing some of the many readers, copyists, and editors who left their mark on the Elements before handing it on. He shows how some read the book as a work of philosophy, while others viewed it as a practical guide to life. He examines the many different contexts in which Euclid's book and his geometry were put to use, from the Neoplatonic school at Athens and the artisans' studios of medieval Baghdad to the Jesuit mission in China and the workshops of Restoration London. Wardhaugh shows how the Elements inspired ideas in theology, art, and music, and how the book has acquired new relevance to the strange geometries of dark matter and curved space. --From publisher description.
