Why was Wantzel overlooked for a century?The changing importance of an impossibility result

Jesper Lützen

Why was Wantzel overlooked for a century?The changing importance of an impossibility result

Jesper Lützen

Institut for Matematiske Fag

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › peer review

18 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

Wantzel's bevis for umuligheden af konstruktion af terningens fordobling og vinklens tredeling (1837) analyseres. Der argumenteres for at en af grundene til at artiklen ikke blev kendt i de følgende 100 år var at den slags umulighedsudsagn ikke var centrale i den matematikopfattelse, som stadig var fremherskende på Wantzel's tid, hvor problemløsning var mere central end begrebsafklaring.
Udgivelsesdato: 28/10, 2009

Originalsprog	Engelsk
Tidsskrift	Historia Mathematica
Vol/bind	36
Sider (fra-til)	374-394
ISSN	0315-0860
Status	Udgivet - 2009

Citationsformater

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abstract = "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.",

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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.

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