which each particular instance of either geometry presents.
The existence of a natural unit of length is a peculiarity common
both to hyperbolic and elliptic geometries, and differentiates
them from Euclidean geometry. It is the reason for the failure
of the theory of similarity in them. If γ is very large, that is,
if the natural unit is very large compared to the arbitrary unit,
and if the lengths involved in the figures considered are not large
compared to the arbitrary unit, then both the elliptic and
hyperbolic geometries approximate to the Euclidean. For from
formulae (4) and (5) and also from (12) and (13) we find, after
retaining only the lowest powers of small quantities, as the
formulae for any triangle ABC,
and
with two similar equations. Thus the geometries of small figures are in both types Euclidean.
History.—“In pulcherrimo Geometriae corpore,” wrote Sir Henry Savile in 1621, “duo sunt naevi, duae labes nec quod sciam plures, in quibus eluendis et emaculendis cum veterum tum recentiorum ... vigilavit industria.” These two blemishes are the theory of parallels and Theory of parallels before Gauss. the theory of proportion. The “industry of the moderns,” in both respects, has given rise to important branches of mathematics, while at the same time showing that Euclid is in these respects more free from blemish than had been previously credible. It was from endeavours to improve the theory of parallels that non-Euclidean geometry arose; and though it has now acquired a far wider scope, its historical origin remains instructive and interesting. Euclid’s “axiom of parallels” appears as Postulate V. to the first book of his Elements, and is stated thus, “And that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the angles, internal and on the same side, less than two right angles, the two straight lines, being produced indefinitely, meet on the side on which are the angles less than two right angles.” The original Greek is καὶ ἐὰν εἰς δύο εὐθείας εὐθεῖα ἐμπίπτουσα τὰς ἐντὸς καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ μέρη γωνίας δύο ὀρθῶν ἐλάσσονας ποιῇ, ἐκβαλλομένας τὰς δύο εὐθείας ἐπ᾽ ἄπειρον συμπίπτειν, ἐφ᾽ ἃ μέρη εἰσὶν αἱ τῶν δύο ὀρθῶν ἐλάσσονες.
To Euclid’s successors this axiom had signally failed to appear self-evident, and had failed equally to appear indemonstrable. Without the use of the postulate its converse is proved in Euclid’s 28th proposition, and it was hoped that by further efforts the postulate itself could be also proved. The first step consisted in the discovery of equivalent axioms. Christoph Clavius in 1574 deduced the axiom from the assumption that a line whose points are all equidistant from a straight line is itself straight. John Wallis in 1663 showed that the postulate follows from the possibility of similar triangles on different scales. Girolamo Saccheri (1733) showed that it is sufficient to have a single triangle, the sum of whose angles is two right angles. Other equivalent forms may be obtained, but none shows any essential superiority to Euclid’s. Indeed plausibility, which is chiefly aimed at, becomes a positive demerit where it conceals a real assumption.
A new method, which, though it failed to lead to the desired goal, proved in the end immensely fruitful, was invented by Saccheri, in a work entitled Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus (Milan, 1733). If the postulate of parallels Saccheri. is involved in Euclid’s other assumptions, contradictions must emerge when it is denied while the others are maintained. This led Saccheri to attempt a reductio ad absurdum, in which he mistakenly believed himself to have succeeded. What is interesting, however, is not his fallacious conclusion, but the non-Euclidean results which he obtains in the process. Saccheri distinguishes three hypotheses (corresponding to what are now known as Euclidean or parabolic, elliptic and hyperbolic geometry), and proves that some one of the three must be universally true. His three hypotheses are thus obtained: equal perpendiculars AC, BD are drawn from a straight line AB, and CD are joined. It is shown that the angles ACD, BDC are equal. The first hypothesis is that these are both right angles; the second, that they are both obtuse; and the third, that they are both acute. Many of the results afterwards obtained by Lobatchewsky and Bolyai are here developed. Saccheri fails to be the founder of non-Euclidean geometry only because he does not perceive the possible truth of his non-Euclidean hypotheses.
Some advance is made by Johann Heinrich Lambert in his Theorie der Parallellinien (written 1766; posthumously published 1786). Though he still believed in the necessary truth of Euclidean geometry, he confessed that, in Lambert. all his attempted proofs, something remained undemonstrated. He deals with the same three hypotheses as Saccheri, showing that the second holds on a sphere, while the third would hold on a sphere of purely imaginary radius. The second hypothesis he succeeds in condemning, since, like all who preceded Bernhard Riemann, he is unable to conceive of the straight line as finite and closed. But the third hypothesis, which is the same as Lobatchewsky’s, is not even professedly refuted.[1]
Non-Euclidean geometry proper begins with Karl Friedrich Gauss. The advance which he made was rather philosophical than mathematical: it was he (probably) who first recognized that the postulate of parallels is possibly false, and should be empirically tested by measuring Three periods of non-Euclidean geometry. the angles of large triangles. The history of non-Euclidean geometry has been aptly divided by Felix Klein into three very distinct periods. The first—which contains only Gauss, Lobatchewsky and Bolyai—is characterized by its synthetic method and by its close relation to Euclid. The attempt at indirect proof of the disputed postulate would seem to have been the source of these three men’s discoveries; but when the postulate had been denied, they found that the results, so far from showing contradictions, were just as self-consistent as Euclid. They inferred that the postulate, if true at all, can only be proved by observations and measurements. Only one kind of non-Euclidean space is known to them, namely, that which is now called hyperbolic. The second period is analytical, and is characterized by a close relation to the theory of surfaces. It begins with Riemann’s inaugural dissertation, which regards space as a particular case of a manifold; but the characteristic standpoint of the period is chiefly emphasized by Eugenio Beltrami. The conception of measure of curvature is extended by Riemann from surfaces to spaces, and a new kind of space, finite but unbounded (corresponding to the second hypothesis of Saccheri and Lambert), is shown to be possible. As opposed to the second period, which is purely metrical, the third period is essentially projective in its method. It begins with Arthur Cayley, who showed that metrical properties are projective properties relative to a certain fundamental quadric, and that different geometries arise according as this quadric is real, imaginary or degenerate. Klein, to whom the development of Cayley’s work is due, showed further that there are two forms of Riemann’s space, called by him the elliptic and the spherical. Finally, it has been shown by Sophus Lie, that if figures are to be freely movable throughout all space in ∞6 ways, no other three-dimensional spaces than the above four are possible.
Gauss published nothing on the theory of parallels, and it was not generally known until after his death that he had interested himself in that theory from a very early date. In 1799 he announces that Euclidean geometry would follow from the assumption that a triangle can be drawn Gauss. greater than any given triangle. Though unwilling to assume this, we find him in 1804 still hoping to prove the postulate of parallels. In 1830 he announces his conviction that geometry is not an a priori science; in the following year he explains that non-Euclidean geometry is free from contradictions, and that, in this system, the angles of a triangle diminish without limit when all the sides are increased. He also gives for the
- ↑ On the theory of parallels before Lobatchewsky, see Stäckel und Engel, Theorie der Parallellinien von Euklid bis auf Gauss (Leipzig, 1895). The foregoing remarks are based upon the materials collected in this work.
