Max Scheler
Gesellschaft

Repository | Buch | Kapitel

224729

Debating Grassmann's mathematics

Schlegel vs. Klein

David E. Rowe

pp. 95-103

Abstrakt

Mathematical fame can be a fickle thing, little more enduring than its mundane counterparts, success and recognition. Sometimes it sticks, but for odd or obscure reasons. Take the case of a largely forgotten figure named Victor Schlegel (1843–1905): googling for "Schlegel diagrams' immediately brings up scads of colored graphics depicting plane projections of 4-dimensional polyhedra. None that I found, however, could compare with the figures that appear in a little-known paper (Schlegel 1883). It seems these figures are aptly named, but how and when they came to be called Schlegel diagrams remains a mystery (see also (Schlegel 1886)). In fact, clicking through Wikipedia, MacTutor, and their progeny for Victor Schlegel turns up nothing; nor does he appear in standard compendia, like the Lexikon bedeutender Mathematiker.

Publication details

Published in:

Rowe David E. (2018) A richer picture of mathematics: the Göttingen tradition and beyond. Dordrecht, Springer.

Seiten: 95-103

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-67819-1_9

Referenz:

Rowe David E. (2018) Debating Grassmann's mathematics: Schlegel vs. Klein, In: A richer picture of mathematics, Dordrecht, Springer, 95–103.