Did Euclid exist? Is it okay to quote people that did not exist?

  The following excerpt from Abrahim Ladha's comment on Lance's post about AI and intro theory caught my attention: --------------------------- BEGIN EXCERPT Not just with AI, but in theory and math courses, there have always been Bart Simpson level questions by students of the form "Why do I need to know this? like Why do I need to know my times tables when the calculator does this for me? There has never been a good answer because these students already do not have an open mind. Euclid was asked such a question once and said something like give him a penny so he may feel like he earned something for what he learned. END EXCERPT ----------------------------------- He gives a quote by Euclid. 1) I have heard that Euclid might not have really existed. 2) I have never heard that quote. I asked Abrahim Ladha if he had a source for the Euclid quote. I never go a response. I asked chatty:         What is the historical evidence that Euclid existed? and also         Did Euclid say give him a penny so he may feel like he earned something for what he learned? The answer to both questions are below. The bottom line is that 1) Euclid might not have existed. 2) The idea underlying the quote is attributed to him. The exact quote is modern rendering. 

Should Abrahim have consulted chatty before making his comment. 1) YES, it's important to make sure your facts are correct. 2) NO, his point is still valid. (That is a slippery slope.) ---------------------------------------- BILL: What is the historical evidence that Euclid existed? That’s a great question — and a surprisingly tricky one. Short answer There is no direct historical evidence that Euclid (often called Euclid of Alexandria) existed as an individual in the way we can verify the existence of, say, Archimedes. What we “know” about Euclid comes almost entirely from later sources, not from contemporary records. The evidence we do have 1) Type: Ancient testimonies Source: Proclus, Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements Date: ca. 450 CE Note: Written about 700 years after Euclid’s supposed lifetime. Proclus says Euclid lived in the time of Ptolemy I (reigned 323–283 BCE) and taught in Alexandria. This is our main source. 2) Type: Mentions by other ancient authors Source: Pappus of Alexandria (4th century CE), Diogenes Laërtius (possibly), and others Date: 200–600 years later Note: These references repeat information similar to Proclus’s account — that Euclid compiled the Elements and worked in Alexandria. 3) Type: Mathematical evidence Source: The Elements and other works attributed to Euclid (Data, Optics, Phaenomena, etc.) Date: ca. 300 BCE? Note: These texts show a unified style and method, suggesting a single organizing mind (or school). But there is no personal or biographical detail inside them. 4) Type: Absence of contemporary evidence Note: There are no letters, inscriptions, or administrative records naming Euclid. No ancient biography (unlike Archimedes or Apollonius). Scholarly interpretation Traditional view: There was a historical Euclid, a mathematician who worked in Alexandria around 300 BCE and compiled earlier Greek geometry into the Elements. Skeptical or revisionist view: “Euclid” may have been a collective name for a team or a school of mathematicians in early Hellenistic Alexandria, much like “Hippocrates” in medicine. The Elements itself is consistent in style, so even if multiple people contributed, it was edited or systematized by someone with extraordinary coherence and rigor. In summary There is no direct documentary or archaeological proof that Euclid existed as an individual, only later testimony and internal evidence from the mathematical works. Historically, most scholars accept that there was a person — or at least a leading mathematician — behind the name “Euclid,” but his life remains almost entirely unknown. --------------------- BILL: Did Euclid say `give him a penny so he may feel like he earned something for what he learned.' ChatGPT said: The quote you’re referring to — something like “Give him a penny so he may feel he has learned something” — is attributed to Euclid, but not in those exact modern words. It comes from an ancient anecdote recorded by Proclus (a 5th-century commentator on Euclid) in his Commentary on Euclid’s Elements. The story goes like this: A student, after learning the first theorem of geometry, asked Euclid, “What shall I get by learning these things?” Euclid called his slave and said, “Give him a penny, since he must make gain out of what he learns.” In Greek, it’s roughly: “Δός αὐτῷ ὀβολόν, ἐπειδὴ κερδαίνειν δεῖται ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων.”

So your paraphrase captures the spirit of the anecdote — Euclid was mocking the idea of studying geometry for material reward — but the exact wording “give him a penny so he may feel he earned something for what he learned” is a modern retelling, not a direct quotation.