scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2210882

Publication date 29 September 2005

academies basic concepts of geometry explanations in mathematics, Chr. Doppler

Philosophy of mathematics (00A30) History of mathematics in the 19th century (01A55) History of mathematics at institutions and academies (non-university) (01A74) Collected or selected works; reprintings or translations of classics (01A75)

Review text

The greater part of this volume presents Bolzano's correspondence with and his expert's opinions for the Royal Bohemian Society of Science written between 1832 and 1848. It furthermore contains the edition of three manuscripts dealing with basic concepts of mathematics, in particular of geometry. The editor's introduction provides background information on Bolzano's relation to the Royal Bohemian Society of Science to which he was elected on 19 February 1814. Having been several times director of this society he direced the new Section of Philosophy and Pure Mathematics from 1845 until his death in 1848. The introduction gives the full list of Bolzano's contributions to the Sections of Mathematics, of Science and Applied Mathematics, and of Philosophy and Pure Mathematics read before the society. In 1833 the society published a prize question asking for a general solution of algebraic equations of more than fourth degree. The text of the invitation is printed in the introduction (pp.\ 11--14), Bolzano's decisive evaluation on pp.\ 36--47. Several of the evaluations concern contributions submitted by Christian Doppler for publication in the proceedings of the society who is today best known for the ``Doppler principle first published in a paper on the colored light of double stars in 1842. The three manuscripts edited are entitled ``Mathematische Gespräche (``Mathematical conversations), ``Versuch einer Erklärung der Begriffe von Linie, Fläche und Körper (``Attempt of an explanation of the concepts of line, plane and body), and ``Geometrische Begriffe, die jeder kennt und nicht kennt (``Geometrical concepts known and not known by everyone). All three papers aim at clarifying basic concepts of geometry, starting from the insight, as expressed in the second, longest, of these papers, that each educated person will know what the words ``line, ``plane, ``body in the geometric sense mean, but only very few will be able to explain these concepts, i.e.\ to say of which elements these concepts are made up (p.\ 117). In order to prepare such explanation Bolzano develops the logical presuppositions on the basis of his notion of intuition (``Vorstellung).

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