Euclidean geometry and physical space (Q1002123)

The first sentence of the essay reads: ``It takes a good deal of historical imagination to picture the kinds of debates that accompanied the slow process which ultimately led to the acceptance of non-Euclidean geometry a little more than a century ago.'' In the introduction, among others, the correspondence between Gottlieb Frege and David Hilbert (from the beginning of the 20th century) about foundations of geometry is reported. The titles of the subsequent sections are: Gauss, Measurement and the Pythagorean Theorem; Euclidean Traditions and ``anschauliche Geometrie''; What about Spherical Geometry? On the Shoulders of Ancient Giants; Gauss and the Intrinsic Geometry of Surfaces; Slow Acceptance of the Non-Euclidean Geometry. In particular, in the second section (``Euclidean Traditions \dots''), the book by D. Hilbert and S. Cohn-Vossen [``Geometry and Imagination'', Chelsea, New York, (1965)] is reminded as well as the drama by L. Carroll (Ch. Dodgson) [``Euclid and His Modern Rivals'', Macmillan, London, 1885; repr. Dover, New York, (1972)]. In the last section ``Slow Acceptance \dots'' there is pointed out the significance of the Bernhard Riemann's lecture on the foundations of geometry, delivered in Göttingen in 1853, cf. B. Riemann [Abhandlungen der Kgl. Gesselschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 13, 133-152 (1867)]. The concluding sentence of the essay reads: ``Still'' [after publication of the Riemann's paper (quoted above)] ``it would take several more years before non-Euclidean geometry found widespread acceptance among mathematicians, many of them remained convinced that Euclid still reigned supreme.''