which is used in Book VI. The 7th, 8th and 9th books are purely arithmetical, whilst the 10th contains a most ingenious treatment of geometrical irrational quantities. These four books will be excluded from our survey. The remaining three books relate to figures in space, or, as it is generally called, to “solid geometry.” The 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 13th and part of the 11th and 12th books are now generally omitted from the school editions of the Elements. In the first four and in the 6th book it is to be understood that all figures are drawn in a plane.
Book I. of Euclid’s “Elements.”
§ 6. According to the third postulate it is possible to draw in any plane a circle which has its centre at any given point, and its radius equal to the distance of this point from any other point given in the plane. This makes it possible (Prop. 1) to construct on a given line AB an equilateral triangle, by drawing first a circle with A as centre and AB as radius, and then a circle with B as centre and BA as radius. The point where these circles intersect—that they intersect Euclid quietly assumes—is the vertex of the required triangle. Euclid does not suppose, however, that a circle may be drawn which has its radius equal to the distance between any two points unless one of the points be the centre. This implies also that we are not supposed to be able to make any straight line equal to any other straight line, or to carry a distance about in space. Euclid therefore next solves the problem: It is required along a given straight line from a point in it to set off a distance equal to the length of another straight line given anywhere in the plane. This is done in two steps. It is shown in Prop. 2 how a straight line may be drawn from a given point equal in length to another given straight line not drawn from that point. And then the problem itself is solved in Prop. 3, by drawing first through the given point some straight line of the required length, and then about the same point as centre a circle having this length as radius. This circle will cut off from the given straight line a length equal to the required one. Nowadays, instead of going through this long process, we take a pair of compasses and set off the given length by its aid. This assumes that we may move a length about without changing it. But Euclid has not assumed it, and this proceeding would be fully justified by his desire not to take for granted more than was necessary, if he were not obliged at his very next step actually to make this assumption, though without stating it.
§ 7. We now come (in Prop. 4) to the first theorem. It is the fundamental theorem of Euclid’s whole system, there being only a very few propositions (like Props. 13, 14, 15, I.), except those in the 5th book and the first half of the 11th, which do not depend upon it. It is stated very accurately, though somewhat clumsily, as follows:—
If two triangles have two sides of the one equal to two sides of the other, each to each, and have also the angles contained by those sides equal to one another, they shall also have their bases or third sides equal; and the two triangles shall be equal; and their other angles shall be equal, each to each, namely, those to which the equal sides are opposite.
That is to say, the triangles are “identically” equal, and one may be considered as a copy of the other. The proof is very simple. The first triangle is taken up and placed on the second, so that the parts of the triangles which are known to be equal fall upon each other. It is then easily seen that also the remaining parts of one coincide with those of the other, and that they are therefore equal. This process of applying one figure to another Euclid scarcely uses again, though many proofs would be simplified by doing so. The process introduces motion into geometry, and includes, as already stated, the axiom that figures may be moved without change of shape or size.
If the last proposition be applied to an isosceles triangle, which has two sides equal, we obtain the theorem (Prop. 5), if two sides of a triangle are equal, then the angles opposite these sides are equal.
Euclid’s proof is somewhat complicated, and a stumbling-block to many schoolboys. The proof becomes much simpler if we consider the isosceles triangle ABC (AB = AC) twice over, once as a triangle BAC, and once as a triangle CAB; and now remember that AB, AC in the first are equal respectively to AC, AB in the second, and the angles included by these sides are equal. Hence the triangles are equal, and the angles in the one are equal to those in the other, viz. those which are opposite equal sides, i.e. angle ABC in the first equals angle ACB in the second, as they are opposite the equal sides AC and AB in the two triangles.
There follows the converse theorem (Prop. 6). If two angles in a triangle are equal, then the sides opposite them are equal,—i.e. the triangle is isosceles. The proof given consists in what is called a reductio ad absurdum, a kind of proof often used by Euclid, and principally in proving the converse of a previous theorem. It assumes that the theorem to be proved is wrong, and then shows that this assumption leads to an absurdity, i.e. to a conclusion which is in contradiction to a proposition proved before—that therefore the assumption made cannot be true, and hence that the theorem is true. It is often stated that Euclid invented this kind of proof, but the method is most likely much older.
§ 8. It is next proved that two triangles which have the three sides of the one equal respectively to those of the other are identically equal, hence that the angles of the one are equal respectively to those of the other, those being equal which are opposite equal sides. This is Prop. 8, Prop. 7 containing only a first step towards its proof.
These theorems allow now of the solution of a number of problems, viz.:—
To bisect a given angle (Prop. 9).
To bisect a given finite straight line (Prop. 10).
To draw a straight line perpendicularly to a given straight line through a given point in it (Prop. 11), and also through a given point not in it (Prop. 12).
The solutions all depend upon properties of isosceles triangles.
§ 9. The next three theorems relate to angles only, and might have been proved before Prop. 4, or even at the very beginning. The first (Prop. 13) says, The angles which one straight line makes with another straight line on one side of it either are two right angles or are together equal to two right angles. This theorem would have been unnecessary if Euclid had admitted the notion of an angle such that its two limits are in the same straight line, and had besides defined the sum of two angles.
Its converse (Prop. 14) is of great use, inasmuch as it enables us in many cases to prove that two straight lines drawn from the same point are one the continuation of the other. So also is
Prop. 15. If two straight lines cut one another, the vertical or opposite angles shall be equal.
§ 10. Euclid returns now to properties of triangles. Of great importance for the next steps (though afterwards superseded by a more complete theorem) is
Prop. 16. If one side of a triangle be produced, the exterior angle shall be greater than either of the interior opposite angles.
Prop. 17. Any two angles of a triangle are together less than two right angles, is an immediate consequence of it. By the aid of these two, the following fundamental properties of triangles are easily proved:—
Prop. 18. The greater side of every triangle has the greater angle opposite to it;
Its converse, Prop. 19. The greater angle of every triangle is subtended by the greater side, or has the greater side opposite to it;
Prop. 20. Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side;
And also Prop. 21. If from the ends of the side of a triangle there be drawn two straight lines to a point within the triangle, these shall be less than the other two sides of the triangle, but shall contain a greater angle.
§ 11. Having solved two problems (Props. 22, 23), he returns to two triangles which have two sides of the one equal respectively to two sides of the other. It is known (Prop. 4) that if the included angles are equal then the third sides are equal; and conversely (Prop. 8), if the third sides are equal, then the angles included by the first sides are equal. From this it follows that if the included angles are not equal, the third sides are not equal; and conversely, that if the third sides are not equal, the included angles are not equal. Euclid now completes this knowledge by proving, that “if the included angles are not equal, then the third side in that triangle is the greater which contains the greater angle”; and conversely, that “if the third sides are unequal, that triangle contains the greater angle which contains the greater side.” These are Prop. 24 and Prop. 25.
§ 12. The next theorem (Prop. 26) says that if two triangles have one side and two angles of the one equal respectively to one side and two angles of the other, viz. in both triangles either the angles adjacent to the equal side, or one angle adjacent and one angle opposite it, then the two triangles are identically equal.
This theorem belongs to a group with Prop. 4 and Prop. 8. Its first case might have been given immediately after Prop. 4, but the second case requires Prop. 16 for its proof.
§ 13. We come now to the investigation of parallel straight lines, i.e. of straight lines which lie in the same plane, and cannot be made to meet however far they be produced either way. The investigation which starts from Prop. 16, will become clearer if a few names be explained which are not all used by Euclid. If two straight lines be cut by a third, the latter is now generally called a “transversal” of the figure. It forms at the two points where it cuts the given lines four angles with each. Those of the angles which lie between the given lines are called interior angles, and of these, again, any two which lie on opposite sides of the transversal but one at each of the two points are called “alternate angles.”
We may now state Prop. 16 thus:—If two straight lines which meet are cut by a transversal, their alternate angles are unequal. For the lines will form a triangle, and one of the alternate angles will be an exterior angle to the triangle, the other interior and opposite to it.
From this follows at once the theorem contained in Prop. 27. If two straight lines which are cut by a transversal make alternate angles equal, the lines cannot meet, however far they be produced, hence they are parallel. This proves the existence of parallel lines.
Prop. 28 states the same fact in different forms. If a straight line, falling on two other straight lines, make the exterior angle equal to the interior and opposite angle on the same side of the line, or make
