From Euclid to Abraham Lincoln, Logical Minds Think Alike

/euclid-as-founding-father

  • Euclid as Founding Father - Issue 41: Selection
    http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/euclid-as-founding-father

    Despite the man’s awkward gestures, unkempt hair, and ill-fitting suit, it was one of the most extraordinary speeches that Reverend John Gulliver had ever heard. It was March 1860, and the venue was Norwich, Connecticut. The following morning Gulliver struck up conversation with the speaker, a politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln, as he caught a train down to Bridgeport. As the pair took their seats in the carriage, Gulliver asked Lincoln about his remarkable oratory skill: “I want very much to know how you got this unusual power of ‘putting things.’ ” According to Gulliver, Lincoln said it wasn’t a matter of formal education. “I never went to school more than six months in my life.” But he did find training elsewhere. “In the course of my law-reading I constantly came upon the word (...)