David Fowler (mathematician)

David Herbert Fowler (28 April 1937 – 13 April 2004) was a historian of Greek mathematics who published work on pre-Eudoxian ratio theory (using the process he called anthyphairesis). He disputed the standard story of Quotes Euclid himself is an elusive figure. We know nothing of him from contemporary references … Euclid’s Elements, which is believed to have been compiled around 300 BC, gives us an edited and anonymous treatment of some of the mathematics of Euclid’s predecessors, in a text that has passed through the hands of an unknown number of further scribes and editors before arriving at the versions that we now possess. ...Our evidence concerning pre-Euclidean mathematics is so indirect and fragmentary that the greatest part of the stories that are now told about the period must be invention. Fowler, The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy: A New Reconstruction, quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189 NothingAlmost all of our texts come from Constantinople, the earliest from 888 AD, closer [in] time to us than to the supposed date of Euclid! Fowler's reply to the qustion : What is known at present about the person “Euclid”? quoted in Euclid and Jesus, How and why the church changed mathematics and Christianity across two religious wars C. K. Raju External links Category:British historians of mathematics Category:20th-century British mathematicians Category:21st-century British mathematicians Category:1937 births Category:2004 deaths Fowler, David Category:Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Category:People educated at Rossall School