euclídeo

Euclídeo, usually rendered Euclid in English, is the name by which the ancient Greek mathematician is known in some Romance languages. Active around 300 BCE, he is traditionally regarded as the father of geometry. Biographical details are scarce and often uncertain; most knowledge of his life comes from later sources that place him in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I.

His best-known work is the Elements, a comprehensive compilation of geometric propositions (and related number theory) arranged into thirteen books. The Elements presents definitions, axioms, and postulates and develops theorems by logical deduction. It is famous for its rigorous axiomatic method and for the inclusion of the parallel postulate, a focal point for later geometry research.

The Elements influenced mathematics and science for over two millennia, shaping curricula in the Islamic world and medieval Europe. The geometric framework, the orderly proof structure, and the concept of building complex results from simple assumptions helped establish the modern standard of deductive reasoning. The term Euclidean geometry refers to this body of ideas.

Other works attributed to Euclid are less uncertain and largely survive only in fragments or summaries. The corpus most associated with him, however, is the Elements, whose influence persists in the language of mathematics to this day.

In contemporary usage, euclídeo can also denote Euclidean geometry, the study of space described by Euclid’s postulates, as distinct from non-Euclidean geometries.