History of Non-Euclidean Geometry - Lies - Part 6 - Extra History - Part 6

You gently corrected out our math mistakes and artistic slip-ups, and we're here to tell you it was all part of Bismarck's plans--er, it's Euclid's fault. Time for another episode of Lies!

*Miss an episode in our Non-Euclidean Geometry Series?*

#ExtraHistory #WorldHistory #History

[extrahistory]

You asked for so long, and here it is! SUGGESTED READING for this Extra History series:
--Euclid's The Elements
--Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
--Lobachevsky's Geometrical Investigations on the Theory of Parallel Lines
Happy reading!

[Nerdnumberone]

It's ridiculous that the Flu Pandemic of 1918 isn't better known. I guess people focus more on WWI, Prohibition, The Great Depression, then WWII in that period, but it killed 3-5% of the world population. Not just infect that many, but *killed* them. This flu had a mortality rate of 10-20%, whereas usual flu epidemics are closer to 0.1%. Not only that, but unlike most lethal diseases, it was more deadly to young adults than the very old or very young who normally get hit worse by such diseases.

The severity of the pandemic was censored in the media because of WWI (don't want to show your enemy weakness or hurt moral). Spain, being neutral, didn't censor it, leading people to think they were hit hardest, leading to the disease being called "Spanish Flu."

[danielrhouck]

Meta-lie: “theorem” and “theory” are different. There’s a Fundamental *Theorem* of Calculus, not a Fundamental *Theory* of Calculus.

[woxof]

I knew this series was part of Bismarck's plan!! Bismarck ALWAYS has a plan!!!

[sirrliv]

Also, just for the record, No, Lobachevsky did not engage in plagerism. Tom Lehrer has stated that he only chose his name because it sounded funny and it matched the rhyming scheme of the song.

[puellanivis]

Riemann is /riːman/ not /raɪman/, and Gaus is /ɡaʊs/ not /gɔs/.

[mybigbeak]

So pythagaras ran around the opposite and the adjacent rather that cutting the hypotonuse.

[shawnheatherly]

Got to respect a man's commitment when he's willing to die to avoid stepping on some beans.

[threaruscamuwundra]

Stevin is such a wonderful idea for a one off episode. The guy basically was first one who really challenged Archimedes and was lay the path clean for the likes of Galilei, Huygens and Newton

[WSUFan]

I might of missed it, but did you ever talk about Playfair’s axiom? Playfair’s axiom is an incredible piece of math that allows us to think about the fifth postulate in a (arguably) easier way. In fact, most modern mathematicians when they refer to ‘the fifth’ refer to Playfair’s axiom as opposed to Euclid’s somewhat outdated interpretation. In short, Playfair is insanely important to the story of hyperbolic geometry and it’s a little disappointing to see him left out.

[ericgilson]

A fun mathematician to have a series on would be Galios. His work is a bit abstract, but complexities of his less than 21 year lifespan would be very engaging.

[Carewolf]

Ryman? Isn't Riemann pronounced Reeman?

[aigen-journey]

"It was 13 scrolls" ... shows 24 scrolls!
More lies! :-)

[TeatroGrotesco]

Wait, you are human? I like your honesty of the mistake instead of just editting and acting like no mistake was made....thouroughly enjoying each episode I find.

[Tobbbl]

Don't read Newton on calculus! He was so mean to poor old Leibniz, who was also much more accessible! (Who's biscuits do taste much better than Newton's sweets!)

Thank you for this series, studying complex geometry myself and doing tutorials in uni on the geometry of one and two dimensional manifolds this was a great series at a great point in time for me, thank you for that :)
The biggest question left for me would still be - why this series? :D

[marcelroeloffzen]

Loved the series, but one interesting fact about squaring circles is that you actually can do that. As long as you stay withing the pure math realm (not the physical world). Tarski wrote a proof that requires cutting a circle into roughly 10^50 pieces that can be recombined into a square. Note though that this Tarski also is co-responsible for the proof that you can divide a sphere into 5 "pieces" which can be recombined into 2 sphere of the same size as the original one (Banach-Tarski theorem). Of course none of this works in the real world and the pieces are not pieces you could actually cut.

[estebangomezllata]

Thanks so much for speaking about the history of maths! It's great to see excellent speakers presenting the theme in an approachable way. For anyone else interested in stories about maths, not too maths-heavy, I recommend du Sautoy's Symmetry.

[GreenMeansGOF]

Hello everyone. I wanted to share this in case people were interested. The three famous impossible problems of Euclidean Geometry are: Doubling the Cube, Squaring the Circle, and Trisecting an Angle. Under the rules of Euclidean Geometry, these are impssible but there are ways of solving them with some added support. Doubling the cube can be solved with the help of the parabola y = x^2. Squaring the Circle and Trisecting an Angle can both be solved with the help of the Archimedean Spiral.

[fristi]

"Simohn Stiven, I hope I'm pronouncing that right"
Dear God, not even close. :P

[JK]

The history of Riemann and Gauß is super fascinating! I would love to hear some EC series talking about the two some day :P BTW, if you ever see an "ie" in a German name/word it is pronounced as a long "e" or German "i". Think of the "i" in integral or the "ea" in reason :) (oh, and "au" is pretty much always pronounced like the "ou" in "out").
In case you are looking for more crazy maths stories with crazy but brillian characters, you could talk about Gödel's incompleteness or even better how set theory became a thing (which is basically how modern maths started) characters like cantor who was actually declared insane, gödel who should have been and david hilbert about whom various funny myths exists and whose date of death is a gag among german maths students :D