Oliver Byrne’s Euclid

I first encountered Oliver Byrne’s 1847 edition of Euclid’s Elements in Edward Tufte’s Envisioning Information. Byrne’s was an innovative and captivating approach to the classic work, using colored diagrams rather than the traditional letters to identify the various geometric objects involved in the proofs. On top of that, it’s just plain gorgeous. And now, thanks to the Internet Archive and the University of Toronto, we have this gorgeous digital version. Thanks to Jennifer Oullette (and Steven Strogatz) for tweeting about it!

The 1st six books of “Elements” of Euclid. Abraham Lincoln swore by this work. For good reason. publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/21/the…

— Jennifer Ouellette (@JenLucPiquant) June 21, 2012