Published: 2018-09-061

INFINITY IN MATHEMATICS: DEVELOPMENT OF PLATONIC IDEAS AND METHODS IN MATHEMATICS IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES

Zbigniew Król
Humanities and Natural Sciences
Section: Articles
https://doi.org/10.31648/hip.533

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the reconstruction of some stage of the proces leading to the emergence in modern science the concept of Infinite „Euclidean” space to geometry of the Elements in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Some historical medieval sources and views concerning Archytas, Cleomedes, Proclus, Simplicius, Aganis, al-Nayrizi and the Arabs, Boetius, Gerard of Cremona, Albertus Magnus et al., are described analyzed and compared. The small changes in the understanding of geometry in the Elements during the ages are reconstructed up to the first explicit use of the concept of infinity in geometry by Nicole Oresme

Keywords:

philosophy of mathematics, history of mathematics, infinity in mathematics, Elements, Euclid, Euclidian geometry, medieval mathematics, ancient mathematics

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Król, Z. (2018). INFINITY IN MATHEMATICS: DEVELOPMENT OF PLATONIC IDEAS AND METHODS IN MATHEMATICS IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES. Humanities and Natural Sciences, (19), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.31648/hip.533

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