The stars and elements

Today, I obtained one of the most important books in human history so far. It's Euclids collections of observations about very simple elements: points and lines. My first observation is that only the introduction to this book is readable as a classical story. The introduction tells about the warm climate of the mediterranean, asks the reader to imagine flourishing agriculture and trading routes between small cities in the Nile delta 2400 years ago. Then, it tells about a city where the people gathered to discuss such things as navigation and architecture, the precursors of knowledge based industries maybe.

The first practical use of observing the stars was navigation on the sea, but the moving patterns and the wonder of small light points in an endless sky, certainly lead to more speculative questions about the hidden laws that make them and us move. Well, for Euclid, it might have lead to write a book about mathematics. Geometry is one of the origins of mathematics, and might teach us some good deal about problem solving. Euclid did not really mention what kinds of problems he wanted to solve. All he shows is how to prove that a proposal is true or false. He must have had quite some fun in discussing about design of reasoning with poets, sailors, artists, priests, kids ? I think the Alexandria of 300 B.C. might have been a place like this.