The Impossibility of Squaring the Circle in the 17th Century - A Debate Among Gregory, Huygens and Leibniz (Paperback, 1st ed. 2019)

This book is about James Gregory's attempt to prove that the quadrature of the circle, the ellipse and the hyperbola cannot be found algebraically. Additonally, the subsequent debates that ensued between Gregory, Christiaan Huygens and G.W. Leibniz are presented and analyzed. These debates eventually culminated with the impossibility result that Leibniz appended to his unpublished treatise on the arithmetical quadrature of the circle. The author shows how the controversy around the possibility of solving the quadrature of the circle by certain means (algebraic curves) pointed to metamathematical issues, particularly to the completeness of algebra with respect to geometry. In other words, the question underlying the debate on the solvability of the circle-squaring problem may be thus phrased: can finite polynomial equations describe any geometrical quantity? As the study reveals, this question was central in the early days of calculus, when transcendental quantities and operations entered the stage. Undergraduate and graduate students in the history of science, in philosophy and in mathematics will find this book appealing as well as mathematicians and historians with broad interests in the history of mathematics.

General

Imprint:	Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Country of origin:	Switzerland
Series:	Frontiers in the History of Science
Release date:	March 2019
First published:	2019
Authors:	Davide Crippa
Dimensions:	240 x 168mm (L x W)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	184
Edition:	1st ed. 2019
ISBN-13:	978-3-03-001637-1
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > History of mathematics Promotions
LSN:	3-03-001637-4
Barcode:	9783030016371

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