Death of Gutenberg (1468) — The Press That Spread Mathematics

Johannes Gutenberg died on February 3, 1468. His invention of movable-type printing around 1440 had an effect on mathematics that is almost impossible to overstate. Before Gutenberg, Euclid's Elements existed in dozens of handwritten manuscripts, each slightly different and available only in monasteries. Within decades of his press, printed editions of Euclid, Fibonacci's Liber Abaci, Ptolemy, and al-Khwarizmi circulated across Europe. Errors that had crept into manuscripts over centuries were corrected through comparison. The Principia Mathematica, Newton's collected works, Euler's 92 volumes — none were possible without the printing press. Mathematics is cumulative: it needs its past to be reliably recorded.