Born: c. 365 BC
Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt
Died: c. 275 BC
Location of death: Alexandria, Egypt
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: Middle Eastern
Occupation: Mathematician, Educator

Nationality: Ancient Greece
Executive summary: Father of geometry

Euclid was a Greek mathematician three centuries before Christ, who taught at the ancient Library of Alexandria and laid out the principles that came to define Euclidean geometry. His masterwork, Stoicheia (Elements), is a 13-volume exploration all corners of mathematics, based on the works of Aristotle, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Plato, Pythagoras, and others who came before him. Little is known about his life, and what little is recounted is often in error, as the name Euclid was fairly common in his time and place.

He is sometimes credited with one original theory, a method of exhaustion through which the area of a circle and volume of a sphere can be calculated, but he left a much greater mark as a teacher. He presented the theorems and problems with great clarity, showed the solutions concisely and logically, and his Elements has remained a standard geometry text for more than two thousand years since his death.

    University: Plato's Academy, Athens, Greece
    Teacher: Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

    Asteroid Namesake 4354 Euclides
    Lunar Crater Euclid (7.4S, 29.5W, 11km dia, 700m height)
    Eponyms Euclidean geometry
    Slaveowners

Author of books:
Elements (13 volumes)
Data (plane geometry)
On Divisions (geometry)
Optics (applied mathematics)
Phenomena (astronomy)

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