Peano on definition of surface area (Q530634)

In 1882, Peano independently rediscovered Schwarz's paradox in the theory of surface area. This led him to look for a better definition, and this paper reviews his attempts, drawing attention to the importance of Grassmann's vector calculus, which was only then receiving the attention of mathematicians. Also important was Peano's work on what can be called derivatives of measures. The paper concludes with a brief look at some paradoxical results about area after the work of Lebesgue in 1902.