E/NE 1: Things Euclid Never Told Me

In this series of posts, I'm going to talk about "the Euclidean axioms" from time to time, so I'd better clarify what I mean by that. Now, Euclid's Elements was a groundbreaking work; it established a format for mathematical writing and reasoning that still has great influence more than two thousand years later. As a methodologist, Euclid has no real rival until the time of Descartes. But, still, there were flaws in his work, which were not corrected until the late nineteenth century. I'd like to talk about that a bit before going on to non-Euclidean geometry.

( Euclid's flaws )

Winning

The National League West champion Padres did, barely, end the regular season with a winning record (82-80). They did it by taking two out of three from the Evil Blue Empire (huzzah!). Next stop, St. Louis. (And I live in the StL area. The next week or so should be... interesting.)

AND...

The San Diego Chargers beat the crap out of the much-touted New England Patriots today.

I'm happy.