Blog Post on Euclid

    I believe the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is really giving Euclid credit for the work that he has done and that his discoveries is something out of this world. By inspection, the title "Looked on Beauty Bare" is also in the starting lyrics of the poem meaning that her idea of beauty is reinforced in the poem. I believe her definition of beauty is looking at Euclid in awe, in hopes that his work should be appreciated. The reason why I believe this is the case is because in the poem it talks about "to ponder about themselves, the while they stare at something, intricately drawn nowhere". The imagery this gives is that people have no idea about his work and it's hard to understand Euclid's rationality. However, the poem ends with "massive sandal set in stone" which gives the idea to me that his ideas in the present is greatly appreciated and led to some of the modern mathematical concepts of today. I think of this poem turning from ugliness to one of beauty. This is my idea of the poem.

    I think Euclidean geometry is important because his work "The Elements" compromises of 13 books which consists of theorems, postulates, and definitions. I believe his work is relevant today because it is the building block of shapes, geometry, angles, etc which are used in different applications. For example, making a structure requires finding areas, determining what shapes are to be used and much more. Furthermore, we are able to see life from different perspectives as the book talks about different dimensions namely the third dimension. To me this means, we shouldn't universally accept everything as for what it is, but try to question to what we're learning. This builds onto my next point because in university, I did my research topic on non-Euclidean geometry which proves that not all Euclidean said is true. It provided a profound argument as why some Mathematicians disagreed with his findings namely Euclid's fifth postulate. Although I learned about Euclidean geometry and was taught that this was universal in high school, it was interesting to learn about non-Euclidean geometry. The problem with Euclid's book of the elements is that some things are meant to be assumed. I think it's not fair to assume something without any basis as that was how I was taught to approach math through logic and proofs.
Overall, my experience has been positive and I learned many different applications to Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry.