Due: Thursday, March 13.
Pick one (but only one) of the following topics and write a brief (3 - 5 pages and a bibliography) paper on the topic.
Project A: Pick one of the 13 books of Euclid's elements and give a description of its contents. Include in your discussion whatever you can find about the mathematicians that contributed to that book.
Project B: Aaboe tells us part of the story of the elements as it was transmitted from Alexandria, into the Arabic world, back to Europe, and (finally) into English. Tell this story, with brief biographical sketches of the individuals involved. We will talk about this later in class.
Project C: In 1852 the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci arrived in China. Among other things he did in a remarkable lifetime was to introduce the works of Euclid into China. Tell this story with brief biographical sketches of some of the individuals involved. We will probably not have time to talk about this in class, so this is something to pursue on your own if you are interested.