A 16th Century Math Book With Pop-Up Models

(via Amusing Planet) Euclid’s Elements, first published in 300 BC, was one of the most important and influential textbooks ever written in the history of science and it laid the foundations of mathematics. Elements was first translated into English from Greek in 1570, by Sir Henry Billingsley, an English merchant who later became the mayor of London. The finished work was over a thousand pages. A unique feature of Billingsley’s translation was the unique “pop up” models—three-dimensional fold-up diagrams—that he included throughout the book to illustrate geometric solids and different mathematical theorems. It was one of the first books to include such a feature.