22. Saceheri.

In the next chapter we shall learn of the discovery of Non-

Euclidean Geometry by Bolyai and Lobachewsky early in the
nine- teenth century. However, this discovery had all but been
made by an Italian Jesuit priest almost one hundred years earlier.
In 1889 there was brought to light a little book which had been
published m Milan in 1733 and long since forgotten. The title of the
book was euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus12 (Euclid Freed of Every
Flaw),
12
This hook was divided lnto two parts, the first and more important of which is
now available in English translation Halsted, Girolamo Saccheri’s Euclides Vinducatus,
(Chicago, 1920), or see David Eugene Smith, A Source Book in Mathematics, p, 351
(New York, 1929).

and the author was Gerolamo Saccheri (1667-1733). Professor of

Mathematics at the University of Pavia.
While teaching grammar and studying philosophy at Milan.
Saccheri had read Euclid's Elements and apparently had been
particularly impressed by his use of the method of reductio ad
absurdum. This method consists of assuming, by way of
hypothesis, that a proposition to be proved is false; if an
absurdity results, the conclusion is reached that the original
proposition is true. Later, before going to Pavia in 1697, Saccheri
taught philosophy for three years at Turin. The result of these
experiences was the publication of an earlier volume, a treatise on
logic. In this, his logica demonstrativa, the innovation was the
application of the ancient, powerful method described above to the
ereatmenc of formal logic.
It was only natural that, in casting about for material to which his
favorite method might be applied, Saccheri should eventually try it
out on chat famous and baffling problem, the proof of the Fifth
Postulate. So far as we know, this was the first time anyone had
thought of denying the Postulate, of substituting for it a
c o n t r a d i c t o r y statement in order to observe the consequences.
Saccheri was well prepared to undertake the task. In his logica
demonstrativa he had dealt ably and at length with such topics
as definitions and postulates. He was acquainted with the work
of others who had attempted to prove the Postulate, and had
pointed out the flaws in the proofs of Nasiraddin and Wallis. As a
matter of fact, it was essentially Saccheri's proof which we used
above to show that the assumption of Wallis is equivalent to the
Postulate.
 To prepare for the application of his method, Saccheri made use
of a figure with which we are already acquainted. This is the
isosceles quadrilateral with the two base angles right angles.
Assuming that, in quadrilateral ABCD (Fig. 11), AD and BC were
equal and that the angles at A and 8 were right angles, Saccheri
easily proved, without using the Fifth Postulate or its consequences,
that the angles at C and D were equal and that the. line joining the
midpoints of AB and DC was perpendicular to both lines. We do not
reproduce his proofs here, because we shall have to give what is
equivalent to them Iater on. Under the Euclidean hypothesis, the
angles at C and D are known to be right angles. An assumption
that they are acute or obtuse would imply the falsity of the
Postulate. This was exactly what Saccherr's plan required. He
considered three hypotheses. calling them the hypothesis of te
right angle, the hypothesis of the obtuse angle and the hypothesis of the
acute angle. Proceeding from each of the latter two assumptions,
he expected to reach a contradiction. He stated and proved a
number of general propositions of which the following are among
the more important:
1, If one of the hypothesis is true for a single quadrtlateral, of the type
under consideration, it is true for every such quadrtlateral.
2, On the hypothesis of the right angle, the obtuse angle or the acute
angle, the sum of the angles of a triangles is always equal to, greater
than or less than two right angles.
3. If there exists a single triangle for which the sum of the angles if
equal lo, greater than or less than two right angles, then follows
the truth of the hypothesis of the right angle, the obtuse angle or
tht acute angle.
4. Two straight lines lying in the same plane either have (even on the
Hypothesis of the acute angle) a common perpendicular or, if
produced in the same direction. either meet one another once at a
finete distance or else continually approach one another.
Making Euclid's tacit assumption that the straight line is infinite,
Saccheri had no trouble at all in disposing of the hypothesis of the
obtuse angle. Upon this hypothesis he was able to prove the Fifth
Postulate, which in turn implies that the sum of the angles of a
triangle is equal to two right angles, contradicting the hypothesis.
It will be seen later, however, that if he. had not assumed the
infinirude of the line, as he did in making use of Euclid I, 18 in
his argument, the contradiction could never have been reached.
But the hypothesis of the acute angle proved more difficult. The
expected contradiction did not come. As a matter of fact, after a
long sequence of propositions, corollaries and scholia, many of
which were to become classical theorems in Non-Euclidean
Geometry, Saccheri concluded lamely that the hypothesis leads
to the absurdity that there exist two straight lines which, when
produced to infinity, merge into one straight line and have a
common perpendicular at infinity. One feels very sure that Saccheri
himself was not thoroughly convinced by a demonstration involving
such hazy concepts. Indeed, it is significant that he tried a
second proof, though wich no greater success. Had Saccheri
suspected that he had reached no contradiction simply because
there was none to be reached, the discovery of Non-Euclidean
Geometry would have been made almost a century earlier than it
was. Nevertheless, his is really a remarkable work. If the weak
ending is ignored, together with a few other defects, the remainder
marks Saccheri as a man who possessed geometric skill and logical
penetration of high order. It was he who first had a glimpse of the
three geometries, though he did nor know it. He has been aptly
compared with his fellowcountryman, Columbus, who went forth
to discover a new route to a known land, but ended by discovering
a new world