Blog Post Nov 08^th

 

Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare

Euclid of Alexandria was the most famous Greek mathematician and was referred to the “father of geometry”.  His most announced work was The Elements which recorded a system of rigorous mathematical proofs.  The Elements covers his work on geometry, algebra and number theory which is seen as one of the most influential mathematical work in history.

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, she refers Euclid as “the second coming of Christ” (McGee, n.d.).  Millay’s admiration for Euclid has made her set his’s intelligent insight above the rest of the mankind.  She claims that Euclid is “alone” the one who can see beauty of mathematics with the rest as Praters.  This conclusion comes from Euclid’ genius contribution on the beautiful mathematical proofs in pure mathematics. Using biblical reference, the poet alludes that Euclid has opened the door of a new way of thinking for mathematics, which put him in a position of “mathematical savior” and using The Element to bring a new light to people (McGee, n.d.).

In response to Millay’s work, David Kramer has dismissed the idea of “Euclid as the Jesus of Mathematics”.  He questions the ignorance of Millay for not seeing great contributions from other intelligent mathematicians in history, but rather, putting one man in a holy position.

I admire the intelligence of Euclid but believe that the advancement of mathematics is more of a collective effort made by many mathematicians throughout history.  The mathematics we know today has taken hundreds of years of evolution to formulate the ground-breaking theorems and theories.  We can easily name some distinguished mathematicians and their works in history: Issac Newton (Newton’s Law of Motion &Calculus), Leonhard Euler (Euler’s Equation), Carl Friedrich Guass (Guass’ Law), Fibonacci (Fibonacci Sequence), and Bernhard Riemann (Riemann Sum) etc.  It is hard to imagine that one genius’ work would form the whole system of mathematics, although Euclid does change the thinking and approach to mathematics to his successors.   

 

Reference

McGee, Ryan. (n.d.). A Mathematical Jesus: An Explication of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare”. Life Orange.  Retrieved from

https://lifeorange.com/writing/writing2.htm