Drowning by multiples. Remarks on the fifth book of Euclid's elements, with special emphasis on prop. 8. (Q1809893)

This work is a part of a wider project intended to study the expression of generality in some segments of the ancient mathematical corpus. Here the author concentrates on the Euclid's Elements, comparing the Greek and the Arabo-Latin tradition. He focuses his attention on the proposition V.8 that states a sufficient condition for an inequality of ratios to hold. After a discussion of the mathematical and textual problems that reviews also the opinions and the perplexities of some modern readers, new unemphazided features in the structure of the proof are pointed out. The comparision of the received Greek text of V.8 and the medieval Latin translations shows that, in the Greek redaction, large portions are to be ascribed to later interventions and permits to discern the original core of the proof. The latter seems to be a reworking in the idiom of equimultiples of an earlier proof which was written in the language of successive bisections. Many remarks are also made about the issue of the generality and about the composition of Book V.