Subject: Re: [HM] Gauss experiment on three mountain peaks
From: Fernando Gouvea (fqgouvea@colby.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 17 2000 - 15:45:44 EST
Two references on Gauss's supposed experiment are:
Arthur Miller, The Myth of Gauss's Experiment on the Euclidean Nature of
Physical Space, Isis, 63 (1972), 345-348
Ernst Breitenberger, Gauss's Geodesy and the Axiom of Parallels,
Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences, 31 (1984), 273-289
The second paper tries to explain exactly which experiment Gauss *did* do.
Hope that helps,
Fernando Gouvea
============================================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea
Dept. of Mathematics Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online
Colby College http://www.maa.org
Waterville, ME 04901
fqgouvea@colby.edu
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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