Math & science · c. 300 BCE
Euclid's Elements
Euclid derives 465 propositions from five postulates, the model of proof for 2,000 years.
Written in Alexandria, the Elements organised Greek geometry and number theory into a single axiomatic chain. It was used as a textbook into the 20th century and shaped how science states and justifies laws.
What it built on 2
What it led to 13
- Gear train 300 BCE
- Watermill 300 BCE
- Archimedes' statics and buoyancy 250 BCE
- Screw 250 BCE
- Earth's circumference measured 240 BCE
- Antikythera mechanism 150 BCE
- Trigonometry 140 BCE
- Book of Optics 1021
- Camera obscura 1021
- Mariner's astrolabe 1481
- Analytic geometry 1637
- Galileo's laws of motion 1638
- Non-Euclidean geometry 1829