
Parallel lines down the centuries
The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts) · Oxford University
June 12, 201913m 50s
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
For 21 centuries, mathematicians worried about a fundamental assumption made by Euclid of Alexandria: that parallel lines must meet at infinity. Could geometry ‘work’ without this assumption? The answer caused mathematicians to reassess the nature of mathematics itself.