Euclid's Data: The Importance of Being Given (Acta Historica Scientiarum Naturalum Et Medicinalium) [Hardcover]

Christian Marinus Taisbak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2003 | Series: Acta Historica Scientiarum Naturalum Et Medicinalium

This book is a scholarly contribution to an area that is still insufficiently understood - the history of Greek geometrical analysis. At the time of Zeuthen, and even up to the middle of the last century, it was fashionable to treat the Data algebraically. Taisbak has abandoned this approach completely, arguing that it does nothing to help us understand either the development of the work or the reasons for its having been copied, studied, and quoted for more than 2 millennia. We must bear a sort of frustration that affects us everywhere in the Data: we get very little information, hardly any "knowledge" of the givens. And why not? Probably because "knowing" geometrical objects was problematic in those days when the concept of "given" came into being, and the consequences of incommensurability was just being understood. Next to nothing is known of these items, and very little that is worth knowing: length, size, distance - any of the attributes that can be spoken of by means of numbers. Although there have been two recent translations of the Data, this one is unique in providing an extensive commentary which provides the insights gained from three decades of studying the work. The book is a coherent and understandable account of what could have been going on in Euclid's mind.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 271 pages
• Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8772898151
• ISBN-13: 978-8772898155
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,557,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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