Why do so many cities have a Euclid Street? I know he was a Greek mathematician. But I don’t see any Pythagoras streets.
Euclid was a lot smarter publicity-wise than Pythagoras. He published his Elements. The Pythagoreans kept a lot of there stuff secret, and when they died out, so did a lot of their lore. We only have a smattering of the knowledge they developed and then not in a concise summary form.
Elements remained a standard textbook for geometry up thru the 19th century. Furthermore, there’s still a few holdouts still using it as a textbook. But it was the 19th century standard education for “Gentlemen” which included the classics like Euclid that led to him being sufficiently well known figure to earn the dubious honor of having streets in usually now crappy parts of town named after him.
I’ve heard the story that it was surveyors in particular who thought Euclid was cool (geometry and all), hence when laying out new towns they often gave his name to streets.
(in my hometown of Syracuse it’s an avenue :))
I love my wife, but oh Euclid!
Altor, you beat me to it. I was just about to say it’s the street in Syracuse where all the students go to get wasted.
My early childhood was spent at 1941 Euclid Street in Indianapolis. (This was before they had ZIP Codes.)
In Santa Monica, CA, a sequence of streets is…11th, 12th, Euclid, 14th, etc. Santa Monica was superstitious, but must have had enough intellect to name the remaining street after a historical mathematician. :rolleyes:
dougie:
I had a HS math teacher (Mr. Werner at Westchester High in L.A.) who told us that they used to name the 13th street Euclid because people wouldn’t want to live on 13th street.
So that matches up with your story, and your example.
He told this story so many times, that when he’d talk about graphing, he’d talk about the gridlike layout of streets. “And what did they call 13th street?” “Euclid!” we’d all shout!
Ah, memories.
I just wanted to come in here to reminisce and tell that story.
Oh, and Euclid is easier to say than Pythagoras!