Bolyai's absolute geometry (Appendix)
Geometría absoluta de Bolyai (Appendix)
- Date
- 1832 · confidence high
- Place
- Târgu Mureș, Mureș, Romania
- Credited to
- János Bolyai
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A 26-page appendix to his father's book developing a geometry independent of the parallel postulate that contains both Euclidean and hyperbolic geometry. The author had reached the idea in 1823 and wrote 'out of nothing I have created a strange new universe'.
Lobachevsky (Kazan, 1829-1832) published earlier; Gauss claimed to have reached similar ideas, and his reply to Farkas Bolyai discouraged János. It is regarded as an independent discovery. It was printed in Marosvásárhely (today Târgu Mureș) in 1832.
What it led to
- late recognition of non-Euclidean geometry in the 19th century
- the Beltrami and Klein models of hyperbolic geometry
- the geometric basis of general relativity