The Window of Euclid's Elements/《几何原本》之窗

A popular science work that interprets Euclid's Elements from multiple perspectives, offering you an understanding of the structure, history, and far-reaching significance of this monumental work.

多角度解读《几何原本》的科普作品，让你了解这部巨著的结构、历史和深远意义。

Euclid's Elements of ancient Greece is an immensely influential masterpiece in the history of science. Starting from a set of postulates, common notions, and definitions, it employs the methods of formal logic to establish the first grand edifice of deductive reasoning in human history-Euclidean geometry. However, the Elements is lengthy and not easily accessible. This book interprets the Elements by selecting a number of its theorems (with special emphasis on the triangle angle sum theorem and the Pythagorean theorem), and also introduces compass-and-straightedge constructions, formal logic, the influence of the Elements on other works (such as Newton's Principia), and the development of modern and contemporary mathematics. In addition, the book recounts the history of how the Elements was introduced to China.

古希腊欧几里得的《几何原本》，是一本科学史上极具影响力的巨著。它从一些公设、公理和概念出发，以形式逻辑的方法，建立了人类历史上第一座宏伟的演绎推理大厦--欧氏几何学。但《原本》篇幅较大、不易理解，本书对《原本》进行解读，选择了其中一些定理（以三角形内角和定理和毕达哥拉斯定理为重点），也介绍了尺规作图，形式逻辑以及《原本》对其他著作（比如牛顿的《原理》）的影响、近现代数学的发展等内容。此外还介绍了《几何原本》被引入中国的历史。