Talk:Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri

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Untitled

This Talk content has been copied from the "Giovanni Gerolamo Saccheri" article, which now redirects here.

See comment below about "Girolamo" spelling.

Google gives an approximate 50% edge to "Girolamo" over "Gerolamo", but both versions seems to have equally authoritative websites vouching for them, so we should look for a ultra-authoritative print source to settle the issue. Stan 19:05, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget to always put

-Wikipedia

in your Google search or you will be getting sometimes a majority of results that are mirrors of the very Wikipedia content you are considering editing!!

(note -- that still produces equal results in this case)

I'm finding the WorldCat library catalog lists the author of "Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus" as "Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri".

Encyclopedia Britannica (online) also has "Girolamo Saccheri" (not Giovanni) as his article title.

Based on that I think the page should be changed. Big hassle -- not sure I'm going to deal with it...

[Just did it...]

Source on > 180

Someone has said that Saccheri found no logical contradiction with the notion that the angle sum of triangles can be greater then 180. This cannot be correct, because it contradicts Euclid's second postulate. Also, it is a non sequitur that if Saccheri found that the angle sum of a triangle is greater than 180, he established the foundations of hyperbolic geometry, where the angle sums are less than 180 and nothing else in Euclid besides the fifth postulate is contradicted. I could be completely wrong here, but a source would be appreciated. SJCstudent Dec 24, 2005

You are right! I have a reference somewhere, but I don't know where I chucked it... Professor M. Fiendish, Esq. 05:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Major Re-Write

I just did a major re-write, adding facts and trying to give an objective tone to the issue of his relation to Omar Khayyam.

I had to state:

"It is unclear whether Saccheri had access to this work in translation, or developed his ideas independently."

Because I can't find any info on this question on the Web.

Anyone who can clarify the "unclear" point please do so...

Given that there is ZERO evidence that Saccheri had access to Khayyam's work - or that a translation of Khayyam's work even existed in Saccheri's day, to write that "It is unclear whether Saccheri had access to this work in translation, or developed his ideas independently" is akin to writing "It is unclear whether Saccheri beat his wife". The statement is true, of course, but tautological - and leading.