12 Nov
2009
12 Nov
'09
8:31 p.m.
Vaughan Pratt wrote:
Such a result [slicker proof of Euclid's Proposition 5] would register about 2 on the New York Times' Richter scale of earthshaking mathematical results, were it not for the fact that it was first noticed by a computer (so the story went).
True to form I neglected to expand on "so the story went" -- Pappus noticed the same thing around 320 AD, cf http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/bookI/propI5.html again. Vaughan [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]