Euclid

August 11, 2004 12:32 AM

Euclid in Colour. 'An unusual and attractive edition of Euclid was published in 1847 in England, edited by an otherwise unknown mathematician named Oliver Byrne. It covers the first 6 books of Euclid, which range through most of elementary plane geometry and the theory of proportions. What distinguishes Byrne's edition is that he attempts to present Euclid's proofs in terms of pictures, using as little text - and in particular as few labels - as possible. What makes the book especially striking is his use of colour ... '
posted by plep (15 comments total)

Nice!
posted by Gyan at 12:48 AM on August 11, 2004

This is so gorgeous! Thank you, plep, thank you!
posted by vacapinta at 12:54 AM on August 11, 2004

fresh
posted by luckyclone at 1:22 AM on August 11, 2004

Great MeFi post. I had no idea this was online. This book is discussed in one of Edward Tufte's books.
posted by D.C. at 3:13 AM on August 11, 2004

Excellent. Thanks
posted by ZippityBuddha at 4:40 AM on August 11, 2004

Beautiful! Thanks for posting. It looks like it would set you back about $5,000 to buy a first edition. This would be a great candidate for a color reprint.
posted by since1968 at 5:28 AM on August 11, 2004

Great find! Check out proposition I.1.
posted by wobh at 5:29 AM on August 11, 2004

[This is good]
posted by rudyfink at 6:04 AM on August 11, 2004

Gorgeous.
posted by freebird at 8:54 AM on August 11, 2004

Very cool.
posted by Vidiot at 9:08 AM on August 11, 2004

WoW
posted by Grod at 10:23 AM on August 11, 2004

[this is good]
thanks!
posted by rhapsodie at 10:59 AM on August 11, 2004

kickass
posted by Pretty_Generic at 11:25 AM on August 11, 2004

Marvellous.

plep deserves the insufficiently recognized but consistently very good contributor to MetaFilter award. Or something.
posted by normy at 11:26 AM on August 11, 2004

Excellent post! An instant bookmark.

...though if the guy was gonna be so revolutionary, why didn't he ditch those annoying S's that look like F's?
posted by soyjoy at 10:45 AM on August 19, 2004