Why was Wantzel overlooked for a century?The changing importance of an impossibility result
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Standard
Why was Wantzel overlooked for a century?The changing importance of an impossibility result. / Lützen, Jesper.
I: Historia Mathematica, Bind 36, 2009, s. 374-394.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Why was Wantzel overlooked for a century?The changing importance of an impossibility result
AU - Lützen, Jesper
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The duplication of a cube and the trisection of an angle are two of the most famous geometric constructionproblems formulated in ancient Greece. In 1837 Pierre Wantzel (1814-1848) proved that the problems cannotbe constructed by ruler and compass. Today he is credited for this contribution in all general treatises of thehistory of mathematics. However, his proof was hardly noticed by his contemporaries and during the followingcentury his name was almost completely forgotten. In this paper I shall analyze the reasons for this neglect andargue that it was primarily due to the lack of importance attributed to such impossibility results at the time.
AB - The duplication of a cube and the trisection of an angle are two of the most famous geometric constructionproblems formulated in ancient Greece. In 1837 Pierre Wantzel (1814-1848) proved that the problems cannotbe constructed by ruler and compass. Today he is credited for this contribution in all general treatises of thehistory of mathematics. However, his proof was hardly noticed by his contemporaries and during the followingcentury his name was almost completely forgotten. In this paper I shall analyze the reasons for this neglect andargue that it was primarily due to the lack of importance attributed to such impossibility results at the time.
M3 - Journal article
VL - 36
SP - 374
EP - 394
JO - Historia Mathematica
JF - Historia Mathematica
SN - 0315-0860
ER -
ID: 15685150