The Nature of mathematical knowledge
Traditionally, mathematics has been viewed as the paradigm of certain knowledge. Euclid erected a magnificent logical structure nearly 2500 years ago in his Elements, which until the end of the nineteenth century what taken as the paradigm for establishing truth and certainty. Newton used the form of the Elements in his principia, and Spinoza in his Ethics, to strengthen their claims to systematically expound truth. Thus mathematics has long been taken as the source of the most certain knowledge known to humankind.