Related papers: Desargues and the "trait \`a preuves"
Number theory as a coherent mathematical subject started with the work of Fermat in the decade from 1630 to 1640, but modern number theory, that is, the systematic and mathematically rigorous development of the subject from fundamental…
Can the cross product be generalized? Why are the trace and determinant so important in matrix theory? What do all the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial represent? This paper describes a technique for `doodling' equations from…
Noticing that all of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries treatments of trigonometry surveyed in this article are conceptually or logically defective, it is required to seek a conceptually sound and logically correct foundations of the…
The famous Descartes' rule of signs from 1637 giving an upper bound on the number of positive roots of a real univariate polynomials in terms of the number of sign changes of its coefficients, has been an indispensable source of inspiration…
Proof Theory and Type Theory are two branches of mathematical logic and theoretical computer science that explore the structure of mathematical proofs and the foundations of computation. Both are crucial for understanding formal systems,…
Discretization of curves is an ancient topic. Even discretization of curves with an eye toward differential geometry is over a century old. However there is no general theory or methodology in the literature, despite the ubiquitous use of…
Mathematicians judge proofs to possess, or lack, a variety of different qualities, including, for example, explanatory power, depth, purity, beauty and fit. Philosophers of mathematical practice have begun to investigate the nature of such…
Despite the considerable interest in new dependent type theories, simple type theory (which dates from 1940) is sufficient to formalise serious topics in mathematics. This point is seen by examining formal proofs of a theorem about…
In his \textit{Brouillon Project} on conic sections, Girard Desargues studies the notion of \textit{traversale}, which generalizes that of diameter introduced by Apollonius. One often reads that it is equivalent to the notion of…
The Sorites paradox is the name of a class of paradoxes that arise when vague predicates are considered. Vague predicates lack sharp boundaries in extension and is therefore not clear exactly when such predicates apply. Several approaches…
In the present paper, we study a set that can be treated as a generalised set of subsums for a geometric series. This object was discovered independently in various mathematical aspects. For instance, it is closely related to various…
Starting with the deontic principles in M\={\i}m\=a\d{m}s\=a texts we introduce a new deontic logic. We use general proof-theoretic methods to obtain a cut-free sequent calculus for this logic, resulting in decidability, complexity results…
Geometry is essentially a global language, which is fully understood in different times, countries and cultures. The proof of a geometric theorem (e.g. the Pythagorean Theorem) or a geometric construction (e.g. the construction of an…
Recently, Ehrenborg and Van Willenburg defined a class of bipartite graphs that correspond naturally to Ferrers diagrams, and proved several results about them. We give bijective proofs for the (already known) expressions for the number of…
A classical result by Erdos and Posa states that there is a function $f: {\mathbb N} \rightarrow {\mathbb N}$ such that for every $k$, every graph $G$ contains $k$ pairwise vertex disjoint cycles or a set $T$ of at most $f(k)$ vertices such…
The Four-Vertex Theorem has been of interest ever since a discrete version appeared in 1813 due to Cauchy. Up until now, there have been many different versions of this theorem, both for discrete cases and smooth cases. In 2004, an approach…
The early Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer published a book on geometry a few years before he died. This was intended to be a guide for young craftsmen and artists giving them both practical and mathematical tools for their trade. In the…
Linear logic was conceived in 1987 by Girard and, in contrast to classical logic, restricts the usage of the structural inference rules of weakening and contraction. With this, atoms of the logic are no longer interpreted as truth, but as…
We introduce persistence with an emphasis on its algebraic foundations, using the representation theory of posets. Linear representations of posets arise in several areas of mathematics, including the representation theory of quivers and…
In 1837, Dirichlet proved that there are infinitely many primes in any arithmetic progression in which the terms do not all share a common factor. We survey implicit and explicit uses of Dirichlet characters in presentations of Dirichlet's…