``\dots in Christophorum Clavium de contactu linearum apologia''. Considerations on the polemic between Peletier and Clavio upon the angle of tangency (1579-1589) (Q1205944)

The question whether the angle of tangency (between the circumference of a circle and its tangent) has the value zero or not, suggested by proposition III.16 of Euclid's Elements, was discussed by the scholastics (e.g. N. Oresme) and by later authors. This article deals with the controversy concerning the angle of tangency between J. Peletier and C. Clavius. In his commentary on Euclid I-VI (1557) and in a work published in 1563, Peletier emphasized that this angle is not a quantity. Clavius' assertion (in his commentary to Euclid, first published in 1574) that the angle of tangency is a ``quantitas minima'', caused Peletier to write an ``Apologia'' (1579) in which he controverted Clavius' point of view. In the polemic between Peletier and Clavius questions about the theory of proportions, the principle of Eudoxus-Archimedes and the set of angles of tangency were discussed as well as general problems of logical and geometrical proofs.