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Hello, around 300 BC in Alexandria, one of the most important works in mathematics appeared.

We know it as Euclid's Elements and it became so influential that it's deeply ingrained

in everything mathematicians to do even now.

Some of the ideas are a revelation.

One of my guests today likened its proof on prime numbers to the discovery of the atom.

Bertrand Russell wrote of Euclid's Elements,

at the age of 11 I not imagine there was anything so delicious in the world.

In the Elements for the first time there were logical arguments for why some mathematics

would always work in any situation.

It became the core of the teaching and understanding of the subject for over 2,000 years

right down to the school days of many of our listeners.

We made it with me to discuss Euclid's Elements, our Marcus Chisotoi,

Professor of Mathematics and Simony Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford,

Seraphina Cuomo, Redrin Roman History at Berkberg University of London,

and June Barogreen, Professor of the History of Mathematics at the Open University.

Marcus Chisotoi, when the elements emerged, how well established was mathematics in 300 BC?

I think that mathematics had been done since 2000 BC. You see Egyptians, Babylonians,

doing a sort of mathematics. What we see emerging here is a very different sort of mathematics.

So they were doing very practical things. They were solving particular equations,

...