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Then, before Euclid starts to prove theorems, he gives a list of common notions. The first few
definitions are:
Def. 1.1. A point is that which has no part.
Def. 1.2. A line is a breadthless length.
Def. 1.3. The extremities of lines are points.
Def. 1.4. A straight line lies equally with respect to the points on itself.
Some historians have suggested that the difference between the way that basic definitions occur at the
beginning of Book I and of Book V is not because Euclid was less rigorous in Book V, rather they
suggest that Euclid always left his basic concepts undefined and the definitions at the beginning of
Book I are later additions. What is the evidence for this?
The first comment would be that this would explain why Euclid never refers to the basic definitions. If
they were not in the text that Euclid wrote then of course he couldn't refer to them. The next point to
note is that they are very similar to the work which is ascribed to Heron called Definitions of terms in
geometry. This contains 133 definitions of geometrical terms beginning with points, lines etc. which are
very close to those given by Euclid. In [2] Knorr argues convincingly that this work is in fact due
to Diophantus. The point here is the following. Is Definitions of terms in geometry based
on Euclid's Elements or have the basic definitions from this work been inserted into later versions
of The Elements?
We have to consider what Sextus Empiricus says about definitions. First note that Sextus wrote about
200 AD and it was believed until comparatively recently thatHeron lived later than this. Were this the
case, then of course Sextus could not have referred to anything written by Heron. However more
recently Heron has been dated to the first century AD and this tells us that Sextus wrote after Heron.
The other part of the puzzle we have to consider here is the earliest version of Euclid'sElements to be
found. When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, Herculaneum together with Pompeii and Stabiae, was
destroyed. Herculaneum was buried by a compact mass of material about 16 m deep which preserved
the city until excavations began in the 18th century. Special conditions of humidity of the ground
conserved wood, cloth, food, and in particular papyri which give us important information. One
papyrus found there contains fragments of The Elements and was clearly written before 79 AD. Since
Philodemus, a student of Zeno of Sidon, took his library of papyri there some time soon after 75 BC the
version of The Elements is likely to be of around that date.
Let us go back to Sextus who writes about "mathematicians describing geometrical entities" and it is
interesting that the word "describing" is not used in The Elements but is used by Heron in Definitions
of terms in geometry. Again the descriptions he gives are closer to the exact words appearing
in Heron than those ofEuclid. When Sextus give "the definition of a circle" he uses the word
"definition" which is that of Euclid. Sextus quotes the precise definition of a circle which appears in the
Herculaneum fragment. This does not include a definition of "circumference" although Euclid does use
the notion of circumference of a circle. The later versions of The Elements which have come down to
us include a definition of "circumference" within the definition of a circle.
None of the above proves whether the basic definitions of geometric objects have been added to The
Elements later. They do show fairly convincingly that the definition of a circle has been extended to
include the definition of circumference in later editions of the book. The hypothesis is that Sextus
has The Elements andDefinitions of terms in geometry in front of him when he is writing and he uses
the word "describe" when he refers to Heron and "define" when he refers to Euclid. Even if this is
correct it still doesn't prove that the version of The Elements sitting in front of Sextus does not contain
basic definitions of geometric objects but it does make such a possibility at least worth debating. What
do you think?
One last point to think about. We quoted above:
Def. 1.4. A straight line lies equally with respect to the points on itself.
What does this mean? It does seem a strange description for Euclid to give, for it appears to be
meaningless. Compare it with the definition of a straight line inDefinitions of terms in geometry:
A straight line is a line that equally with respect to all points on itself lies straight and
maximally taut between its extremities.
Again we ask the reader: do you think that the definition appearing in The Elements is a corruption
of Heron's definition and so was added later, or do you think thatEuclid gave a rather poor definition
which was improved by Heron? Why do neither use the definition of a straight line as the shortest
distance between two points?