Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Science Absolute of Space: Independent of the Truth or Falsity of Euclid's Axiom XI (Which Can Never Be Decided a Priori)
The immortal Elements of Euclid was already in dim antiquity a classic, regarded as absolutely perfect, valid without restriction.
Elementary geometry was for two thousand years as stationary, as fixed, as peculiarly Greek, as the Parthenon. On this foundation pure science rose in Archimedes, in Apollonius, in Pappus; struggled in Theon, in Hypatia; declined in Proclus; fell into the long decadence of the Dark Ages.
The book that monkish Europe could no longer understand was then taught in Arabic by Saracen and Moor in the Universities of Bagdad and Cordova.
To bring the light, after weary, stupid centuries, to western Christendom, an Englishman, Adelhard of Bath, journeys, to learn Arabic, through Asia Minor, through Egypt, back to Spain. Disguised as a Mohammedan student, he got into Cordova about 1120, obtained a Moorish copy of Euclid's Elements, and made a translation from the Arabic into Latin.
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