Geometry and Astronomy: Pre-Einstein Speculations of Non-Euclidean Space

Geometry and Astronomy: Pre-Einstein Speculations of Non-Euclidean Space
by Helge Kragh

Publisher: arXiv 2012
Number of pages: 76

Description:
The recognition that physical space (or space-time) is curved is a product of the general theory of relativity, such as dramatically shown by the 1919 solar eclipse measurements. However, the mathematical possibility of non-Euclidean geometries was recognized by Gauss more than a century earlier, and during the nineteenth century mathematicians developed the pioneering ideas of Gauss, Lobachevsky, Bolyai and Riemann into an elaborate branch of generalized geometry.