Elon Musk

07-31-2009
Phil 485 Paper #1

The purpose of this paper will be to look at examples of methodological

challenges to Pre-Euclidian mathematicians, and look at what the reasoning surrounding
these problems tell us about the philosophical nature of Pre-Euclidian mathematical
reasoning [i.e. their assumptions, and conceptual limits, and its conclusions], as well as
giving critical insight into what perhaps should have been otherwise drawn from the
challenges. Then the paper will conclude with a summation of insights regarding the shift
in Greek mathematics [i.e. how the solutions of earlier problems were changed by
paradoxes and discoveries brought forth]. Although it is not immediately relevant, a
portrait of the environment out of which Greek mathematical reasoning and methodology
[i.e. utilizing a deductive reasoning process, forming generalized proofs, and unifying
theory] is included in Appendix I attached to the back of this paper.
The period of mathematics this paper will look at, from the 5th to the 3rd Century
B.C., is a time when speculation concerning the conception of mathematics not as
practical, but as means to discover the nature of reality. Their obsession with proof,
deductive reasoning process, rigorous proofs, unifying theory, rules, demonstrations, and
general obsession with logical questions, part of developments which happen very late in
any area of study, and as such are relevant to understanding the methodology of Greek
mathematics.
We can begin with the problem of squaring the circle, which is part of the
problem of measuring the areas of curvilinear bounded segments. The general method of

finding this area begins with the intuitive notion of filling up the curvilinear bounded
areas with rectilinear bounded areas, a kind of method of exhaustion, which the sophist
Antiphon claimed that if, in a circle, successive regular polygons are inscribed, beginning
from a triangle, or a square, and successively doubling the number of the sides, of each
step, then at some point, a polygon will be obtained whose perimeter will be
indistinguishable from the circumference of the circle.
Hippocrates of Chios takes a similar approach, but offers a more generalized
proof to the problem of squaring the circle. Hippocrates attempts to find the quadrature
[area] of a circle by comparing the area of two circles as being in the same ratio as two
polygons around the circles. The reasoning behind this move is that the polygons will be
made up of congruent isosceles triangles, so that the bases and altitudes of these triangles
can be compared as in the same ratio. Then the measurements of the altitudes of these
triangle segments will just happen to be precisely equal to the radiuses of the circles.
Hippocrates then claims that the areas of the circles are in the same relation as their
squares over their radiuses, and then that the areas of his two circles are in the same
proportion. From this he gives a convergence principle, which effectively states that if a
ratio obtains between areas of polygons it obtains between circles.
In this argument Hippocrates assumes that there is such a thing as a definite circle
or definite area to which one is approximating. However, it becomes difficult, actually
impossible, to measure beyond a certain point of polygon or circle, but Hippocrates relies
on the deductive nature of his argument as demonstrative proof. This is an especially
important step in the introduction of purely deductive reasoning being relied on as valid
proof of an argument. Later Aristotle would criticize his reasoning

Hippocrates also developed a theory of Lunes, which were curved extensions of

area [as products of overlapping circles], transposed around a circle, and which could be
squared, and thus gave the area of the circle. His argument aimed to show that under
certain conditions a Lune can be squared; that you can find a rectilinear area equal to the
size of the Lune and hence find the area of the Lune. To get a Lune he described a
process: Take circle, draw square inside it, take center of square as point, and draw
another circle through it. Now we get a Lune. He went on to illustrate a hexagon
inscribed in the circle, and related the area of circles to the area of a hexagon + six Lunes.
Further, he illustrates that any Lune can be seen as a trapeze, and since the area of a Lune
is equal to the area of a trapeze, a Lune can always be squared. Hence, the area of the
Lunes can be used to get the area of a circle. Unfortunately he was unable to develop a
comprehensive conclusive argument though.
Hippocrates then gives his famous lemma: Similar segments of circles are as the
squares over their chords. He proves here that areas of circles can be compared the same
way as rectilinear areas by pointing to the fact that when triangles are in the same ratio as
their altitudes they are similar, and then showing that a specific 2 : 2 : 1 ratio obtains with
semi-circles where their altitude is equal to the radius of a circle, and the base is equal to
the diameter of the circle, hence any two semi-circles will be similar as any two triangles
are similar, that is, in relation of the proportion of their bases and altitudes. He then
derives from this that circles are in the same proportion as their diameters since the size
of circles is measured as their squares over their diameters.
The question arises here of what a curve actually is. Plato will comment that it is
better to aim at the definition of curves as properties of things, while mathematicians

often define it by genesis of some motion[s]. In Euclid we find that at least the concept of
a circle is defined in terms of a property. This is most likely due to the later challenges,
mainly presented by Zeno, that uprooted arguments based upon motion, and time from
mathematical proofs. The problem of squaring the circle becomes a major problem,
which exemplifies the problems of measuring the area of any curvilinear bound surface.
Aristotle accused Antiphon is having inherently un-geometric arguments. After all, if he
was correct it would violate the geometric principle that magnitudes can be divided ad
infinitum. Another sophist by name of Bryson attempted to find the square of the circle
by putting a square inside the circle and one outside the circle, and simply saying that the
square of the circle was the one in between these two squares. This approach was
completely useless as it only described what was already known to be the issue, that is, it
really just restated the problem, without giving any way of solving it.
The next development in this problem of curvilinear segment measurement is
Hippias of Elis. He gave a procedure to generate the quadratrix. His concept here is of the
parallel rotating radius and moving side to produce the quadratrix. He will claim that this
shows that any angle can be divided by any given ratio. If we then go back to
Hippocrates, we can ask: how do the areas of two circles C1 and C2? Answer: their
squares over their radii; C1 : C2 :: R12 : R22. Then it is argued that we can rearrange
trianglular sections of a circle into a regular polygon that has the area of a rectangle with
base/2. If we double the base, then we get a triangle made of those two linked rectangles
and we can get perimeter and radius. The triangle weve made has the base equal to
perimeter of the circle and altitude or height as the radius of the circle. Hence the
quadratrix gives us the proper ratio to square the circle.

Sporus will later reject Hippias quadratrix. He raises two objections: His first
objection is that you cannot determine the points without knowing the ratio of the radius
and circumference. This makes no sense because if you think about it as a person you
have to know the ratio to line up the points. That means that the argument presupposes
that the ratio is determined in advance, both that such a ratio exists and that in accordance
with that ratio the speed must be aligned. Sporus second objection is to the idea of
Hippias that the trajectory gives you the regular side of polygons, and it should lead to
the end point. Sporus argues that the procedure gives only the next step, not the end point
of the process so the point G [the endpoint] cannot be known unless you know all terms
of an infinite sequence i.e. if you already know the ratio of the arc to the straight line. The
quadratrix then just gives you a way to divide the angle and with it the corresponding arc
in any given ratio, but you have to have the ratio already, it does not produce the ratio as
Hippias supposed it to.
Now, there is another problem in the area of quadrature, which Democritus of
Abdera is claimed to have brought up, though not proved rigorously enough. This is the
problem of finding the volume of a pyramid, and subsequently, the volume of the prism.
Democritus argument went essentially as follow: A rectangular prism is just a box. To
divide a rectangular prism you get two triangular prisms. So each half should be able to
be dissected into three pyramids. Now the problem becomes a problem of finding the
volume of these pyramids. He posits the idea of thinking of the idea of pyramids as
composed of very many thin slices. This results in triangles of the pyramids with which
to work. If you compare two pyramids and they happen to have triangles that are of
different shapes, but of equal area, and they have the same height then at some given

height, the triangles are guaranteed to have the same area. That means that if you think of
a pyramid as composed of triangular slices then as long as the two pyramids have the
same base, meaning a triangle of equal area and the same height they will be composed
of the same triangular sections that are guaranteed to have the same area. Well, if you
think of the volume of the pyramid as made up of the triangular slices, then, two
pyramids that have bases of equal area and have equal height will necessarily have the
same volume. We then get that these pyramids have equal volume. So that means that one
pyramid is exactly 1/3 of the volume of the prism it composes. This same method applied
to the cylinder/cone relation, and gave the same results.
Now, both of these arguments of Hippias and Democritus seem to depend
crucially on the notion of motion and of indivisibles of time, and/or space. Hippias
quadratrix argument involves 1. Motion, in that the rectification of the arc is
characterized as a rectilinear segment that an object, uniformly moving at the same rate
of speed, traverses, in the same time. Consequently, the same applies to areas. The area
swept by the radius, as it uniformly rotates a quarter circle, is the same, as that covered by
the segment. As moves uniformly at the same rate of speed at the same time along. 2. The
argument crucially depends on the notion that indivisible segments exist. That the arc,
and the rectilinear segment, are both aggregates of the same indivisible elements. That is
what gives meaning to the idea that they both have the same length.
3. The notion that a moving object travels a linear distance that is an aggregate of
indivisible lengths in time seems to imply the existence of indivisibles of time.
In the case of Democritus we can look at part of his problem to be like having two
hollow vessels and at the same time the same amount of water flows into these vessels,

and as a result the levels of the liquid in each are imperceptibly elevated. Then it will take
the same amount of liquid to fill up both to equal height. This is fundamentally how
Democritus thinking works. It is critical that his slices of the pyramid or cylinder have no
thickness, at least not any thickness that is perceptible.
But since all of these arguments, which were rather weighty challenges for the
Pre-Euclidian mathematicians, seem to implicitly rely on indivisibles of time and space,
and/or motion while Euclids proofs end up not relying on these things it will now be
necessary to look at the paradoxes of Zeno.
Zenos big three paradoxes were the Dichotomy paradox, the Stadium paradox,
and the Arrow paradox. The Dichotomy paradox states that for an object to move from
point a to point b it must reach a halfway point, but before that you have to reach a way
point, and before that, half of that, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. But it is
impossible to reach infinitely many points in succession, in finite time. So the object
cannot traverse the distance from A to B, no matter how small it may be, in any finite
amount of time. The Stadium paradox involves two chariots or equal length moving at
equal speed at each other in a stadium relative to a stationary marker the same length as
the chariots. At a certain point one of the chariots will have traversed, in a single moment
of time, twice as many units of the marker as the other chariot. Taken together, the
Dichotomy and Stadium paradoxes effectively raise the issue of the absurdity of
indivisibles of space and time. For in the first case it appears that all motion is impossible
if indivisible do exist. On the other hand, if indivisibles do exist, and we were to replace
the unit length of the chariots and marker in the Stadium with those indivisible unit
lengths, and have them move in indivisible units of time, we would expect a moment in

time where the nose of one chariot reached the middle of a section of the other chariot,
and/or marker, but no such moment could exist. Hence, it looks as if indivisibles are not
possible, and yet they are required for motion. Another important paradox is Zenos
Arrow paradox. An arrow is shot in the air. At any moment while the arrow is moving the
arrow occupies a place equal to itself. The problem is that a moment is supposed to be an
indivisible of time, so that at each moment the arrow is at rest. But if the arrow is at rest
for all moments of time, it cannot have gone anywhere.
As has been seen, however, the arguments of both Democritus and Hippias rely,
fundamentally, on the assumption that the magnitude of a geometric object can be
thought of as an aggregate of indivisible elements. So the arguments of both will make no
sense because it looks as if it is, in fact, impossible to quantify continuous incremental
change the way they would have you do as part of the argument.
In addition to the paradoxes presented by Zeno, the discovery of
Incommensurability [of magnitudes] was also a jarring discovery, which affected these
and other arguments of Pre-Euclidian mathematicians. The discovery of
Incommensurables can be most easily demonstrated by the infinite series of pentagons
inscribed inside of pentagrams. The official method by which this is possible is a mutual
subtraction of the diameter of the smaller pentagon from the side of the larger pentagon
[containing the pentagram, which contains the smaller pentagon] to get the side of the
smaller pentagon continues to infinity. The problem here is that there will clearly be no
greatest common measure so that the ratio between the diameter and the side cannot be
expressed in integers however great; This perhaps the most obvious demonstration of
incommensurability.

The major issue of incommensurability of magnitudes is that it destroys the

Pythagorean notion that everything could be expressed in whole numbers. This was the
foundation for the original Pythagorean Theory of Proportion. Incommensurability
throws this foundation off its tracks then, and in so doing it ends up throwing kinks into
many subsequent arguments of the geometers as well. Hippias implicitly assumes
commensurability between geometric magnitudes in his arguments in various ways. He,
and really all other geometers before incommensurability, thought that the square and
circle must be commensurable, and equally part of Hippias arguments dealing with Lunes
is that he was taking curvilinear segments to be commensurable with rectilinear
segments. Incommensurability makes the idea of exhausting the circle via rectilinear
shapes impossible, and yet many of these solutions were assumed in answers to
arguments such as we have seen. There is also the famous duplication of the cube
problem, which Archytas is said to have proved by finding two middle proportionals by
finding a point intersected by three simultaneous motions. Clearly, Archytas had an
implicit assumption about the commensurability of segments so that he could find these
middle proportionals, and also relied on certain indivisibles of time and space so that he
could accurately find his middle proportionals.
In any case, it looks as if, right up to Euclid, we have a scenario where a uniquely
Greek method of mathematical reasoning developed into a process of deductive
reasoning, aimed at developing generalized proofs, which relied on fundamental
assumptions about the nature of space and time, as well as the idea of commensurability.
When the nature of space and time were brought into question the Greek geometers

ended up with, what were in many cases exceptionally rigorous, proofs that essentially
held no water, and had to be completely reconstructed in different terms.
In fact, it is rather amazing that the Greeks should have so quickly adapted their
theories. The shift point can largely be seen by the discussion of the work of Eudoxus,
who seems to be the source of a new theory of proportion, which applied equally to
incommensurable and commensurable segments, and a method of exhaustion which [at
least attempted to] eradicate the use of infimatesimals.
This kind of radical redefining and reconstructing of theories in mathematics is
actually the norm in any discipline, and really, progress cannot occur without this type of
scenario. The movie goes something like this: the Pythagorean theory of proportions
transfers implicitly to the area of geometry, simultaneously to a transition in mathematics
whereby mathematical reasoning demanded general proofs, and steps into abstraction,
thus a certain conceptual framework had implicitly built itself up in Greece, and major
figures such as Hippias, Democritus, Archytas, and Antiphon pushed these concepts to
their limits; meanwhile, paradoxmongers like Zeno introduce arguments which destroy
the conceptions of such fundamental notions as the nature of space and time as taken by
this conceptual framework, and the discovery of incommensurability then forces a shift in
theory; Eudoxus, and other future Greek figures create even more generalized theories
that take into account the discovery of incommensurability, and skirt their way around the
issues of space and time, ultimately resulting in the codified work of Euclids Elements.
This seems to be precisely how things should have proceeded, for any other course of
action would seem very queer indeed. If, on the one hand, the geometers had ignored
Zenos paradoxes, and the discovery of incommensurability, it would have meant that

they continued to give meaningless proofs, and would eventually have simply exhausted
the conceptual limits of that framework anyway, which means that such earlier
developments as the astronomical motion theory of Eudoxus, would not have developed,
and hence modern science would not have as many major developments to have been
founded upon. On the other hand, if the geometers had taken into consideration the
paradoxes, and incommensurability, but simply came to the conclusion that mathematics
must rely on contradictions, they would have ended up in the same boat as in the previous
scenario, giving much less adequate, and certainly less general proofs and theories for
modern science to work with.
So it looks as if the only possible course to be reasonably taken was for the
Greeks to push their conceptual limits, as they did, and then to reformulate them as new
discoveries were brought to light, or new questions asked. Thanks to this development
modern science had a very strong geometric tradition for its foundation. The whole
history of science would have been radically different if the Greeks had not taken from
this experience the fundamental idea that their conceptual framework, and methodology
would have to continually evolve.

Appendix I
Herein is painted the backdrop for Greek mathematics, and the methodological
innovations that would institute themselves in the Greek approach to mathematics, for it
would not have been possible for the Greeks to have developed such a system as that of
Euclids without building upon the legacy of past cultures.
In fact, the history of mathematics extends back to approximately 3,000 B.C. to
the Babylonians and Egyptians. These are the cultures from which the Greeks end up
basing their mathematics, and it is necessarily then a synthesis of this past tradition of
mathematics, and the new innovations of the Greeks, namely that of introducing a
deductive reasoning process to mathematics, which culminates to give us the
mathematics found in Euclids Elements.
The Greek innovation of a deductive reasoning process, substantive ideas
constituting proofs, unified theory, and rules to mathematics is well illustrated by looking
at how the Babylonians and Egyptians utilized mathematics before them. Neither the
Egyptians, nor Babylonians had generalized proofs. In fact, it is not clear that either
culture had a concept of formulating proofs at all. The reason for this stems from what
mathematics inherently developed from: the need of tax collectors to measure areas of
land so as to appropriate land values, and properly tax landowners. The tradition begins
with that of rope-stretchers, who would be able to get measurements of the type A x B to
get the area of a square plot, and from there extrapolate other measurements such as the
triangle, and parallelogram. Many papyrus scrolls from Egypt have precisely these kinds
of equations, but there is never any proof given. A scroll from 1,650 B.C. signed by a tax
collector of the name Ahkmes surfaced in the Nineteenth century, and illustrates the point
particularly well since it gives equations for calculating the area of a triangle, and
parallelograms, neither of which does he give any indication of proof for. Later, we have
the famous Moscow Papyrus, which attempts to give a formula for computing the area of
an arbitrary quadrilateral, or polygon. However, the formula given on the scroll is wrong
as applied to parallelograms, but the Moscow Papyrus is important in that it shows a
circumstance where a very early mathematician was at least attempting to generalize a
theory for the computation of some area, the area of an arbitrary polygon.
What is even more astounding is a papyrus on which was found a generalized
notion of something extremely similar to our concept of Pi. In fact, the formula is only
off by .02, which is rather remarkable. More importantly it shows strong evidence for
these early mathematicians thinking in general ways, and for thinking in more abstract
ways about mathematical problems. The process can be imagined whereby the
mathematicians imagined a square around the circle, and then imagine dividing the sides
into equal thirds and connecting them, and you get an octagon that essentially ensnares
the circle. The area of this octagon will be the area of the square, and from this is derived
the original, general formula for effectively measuring the area of the circle. Not only
that, but it also represents the first known attempt to square the circle, which the Greeks
later will be hard pressed to find proofs for. However, the Egyptians still utilized mainly
empirical methods of testing this formula, aka, that of the rope-stretchers. The Greeks
will, instead, try to formulate abstract demonstrations as proofs of the general formula for
squaring the circle.

Babylonian mathematics had a different aspect then Egyptian mathematics,

mainly that they had a sort of algebraic system already in place. They are responsible for
providing efficient positional notation system, which the Egyptians did not have.
However, the Babylonians had no concept of exact solutions as independent standards to
follow. They had no proofs. There is no philosophy what these numbers really represent,
all that matters is having an accurate sequence of digits. So even though they were able to
extrapolate from diagrams and their system of notation to figure out such things as the
square root of 2 to the millionths place, and they had come up with the Pythagorean
Theorem, they were still not anywhere near the theoretical level of Greek mathematics.
This is where the Greek tradition begins, sometime around 600 B.C. with
Pythagoras and Phales. But while both of these men are notable figures in mathematics
history, it seems that consecutive 4th Century writers would mistakenly attribute to them
having initiated the practice of formulating general mathematical propositions and
offering proofs of their necessary validity by means of logical argument. There would
have been no logical reason for them to do this, and so it seems this is some kind f
pseudo-history.
If this advancement in mathematics cannot be directly linked to Pythagoras and
Phales, then we must conceive of the development as taking place internally in
mathematics itself. Pythagoras is said to have said the essence of all things is number
or literally all is number. This statement should be understood as in relation to a
rationally ordered universe characteristic of Pythagorean beliefs; A universe that is, in
principle, accessible to us through rational thought. The implication of this is that true
knowledge, knowledge of the way that this rationally ordered universe operates is not
arrived at through experience [sense perceptions] it is deduced [a priori]. It is the
discipline of thinking that is essential to it. It is this attitude of tying thinking to the
universe that necessities thinking with mathematical concepts, and so we can see where a
shift in mathematical procedures would take place, from propositions being supported by
a posteriori, or empirical evidence, to conceiving of mathematical concepts as products of
rational thought. Once this shift is completed, it seems intuitive that mathematicians
would necessarily develop ideas of proof via deductive reasoning, and, from there, to
developing general theory of mathematics. So in a way Pythagoras is responsible for this
shift, but not in a direct manner, but rather by equating numbers with thinking processes,
his cult will bring about the shift to deductive reasoning in mathematics, which will
necessarily lead to development of unifying, generalized theory.
To illustrate this shift in thinking we can look at several things. First is the
Pythagorean proofs of sums of even and odd numbers; The idea that an even number of
even numbers equals an even number ends up being proven by the Pythagoreans, and in
this we can see a clear shift to formulation of proofs. Second, Figural Number Theory,
and the concept of the gnomon, which is a way of generalizing theory on sets of numbers
into patterns, or shapes such as a pyramid [triangle] or square. This marks the first step
from the empirical to the abstract in mathematics. The Pythagoreans soon recognized the
power of general mathematical theory and used their generalized knowledge to perform
what, in those days would be considered, mathematical feats, which must have appeared
almost Godlike. This probably plays largely into the culture of Pythagoras, and the cult
that surrounded him. Mathematics had shifted to this area of abstract, general proofs,
which appeared to give those who possessed the knowledge divine powers, and surely

this was the reason for the cult surrounding Pythagoras. If we think of the story of Phales
utilizing the Theory of Proportion of the Pythagoreans to measure the height of the
Pyramid by relation of its shadow, and the subsequent overthrow of Egyptian
mathematics by Greek mathematics, we can see where the power of the Pythagoreans
was probably thought to be very great. So in a way this occult culture may have been
crucial to the development of mathematics in the way that it would drive its followers to
continually develop greater and greater theories, devise more rigorous proofs, and unify
the field of mathematics in hitherto unexplored ways, all with the goal of promoting the
power of the cult, and the individuals involved in the cult. In this way, the Pythagorean
cult may be integral to the history of mathematics, especially in effecting the main shift
of Greek mathematics from the Babylonian and Egyptians empirical science, to abstract,
general theory based science. Figural Number Theory then represents the official break
with the old systems of mathematics, and the deductions from the theory are the first
example of showing how given patterns represent numbers the propositions about the
numbers necessarily follow from the patterns.
From Figural Number Theory the Pythagorean theorem is eventually devised, and
from the Pythagorean Theorem is devised a general Theory of Quadrature, or the measure
of area. These developments in Greek mathematics represent the absolute end of
mathematics as craft, and present mathematics in terms of justification, that is, in terms of
constantly asking Why?
From here on out the history of Pre-Euclidian mathematics is the story of various
key figures attempting to devise various theories to solve complex problems that now
presented themselves to the new conception of mathematics, and of the methodological
challenges that they faced in so doing.