An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry

philosophical rather than a mathematical spirit, endeavoured to classify the conception of space as a species of a more general conception: it treated space algebraically, and the properties it gave to space were expressed in terms, not of intuition, but of algebra. The aim of Riemann and Helmholtz was to show, by the exhibition of logically possible alternatives, the empirical nature of the received axioms. For this purpose, they conceived space as a particular case of a manifold, and showed that various relations of magnitude (Massverhältnisse) were mathematically possible in an extended manifold. Their philosophy, which seems to me not always irreproachable, will be discussed in Chapter II.; here, while it is important to remember the philosophical motive of Riemann and Helmholtz, we shall confine our attention to the mathematical side of their work. In so doing, while we shall, I fear, somewhat maim the system of their thoughts, we shall secure a closer unity of subject, and a more compact account of the purely mathematical development. But there is, in my opinion, a further reason for separating their philosophy from their mathematics. While their philosophical purpose was, to prove that all the axioms of Geometry are empirical, and that a different content of our experience might have changed them all, the unintended result of their mathematical work was, if I am not mistaken, to afford material for an à priori proof of certain axioms. These axioms, though they believed them to be unnecessary, were always introduced in their mathematical works, before laying the foundations of non-Euclidean systems. I shall contend, in Chapter III., that this retention was logically inevitable, and was not merely due, as they supposed, to a desire for conformity with experience. If I am right in this, there is a divergence between Riemann and Helmholtz the philosophers, and Riemann and Helmholtz the mathematicians. This divergence makes it the more desirable to trace the mathematical development apart from the accompanying philosophy. 17. Riemann's epoch-making work, "Ueber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grande liegen[16]", was written, and read to a small circle, in 1854; owing, however, to some changes which he desired to make in it, it remained unpublished till 1867, when it was published by his executors. The two fundamental conceptions, on whose invention rests the historic importance of this dissertation, are that of a manifold, and that of the measure of curvature of a manifold. The former conception serves a mainly philosophical purpose, and is designed, principally, to exhibit space as an instance of a more general conception. On this aspect of the manifold, I shall have much to say in Chapter II.; its mathematical aspect, which alone concerns us here, is less complicated and less fruitful of controversy. The latter conception also serves a double purpose, but its mathematical use is the more prominent. We will consider these two conceptions successively. 18. (1) Conception of a manifold[17]. The general purpose of Riemann's dissertation is, to exhibit the axioms as successive steps in the classification of the species space. The axioms of Geometry, like the marks of a scholastic definition, appear as successive determinations of class-conceptions, ending with Euclidean space. We have thus, from the analytical point of view, about as logical and precise a formulation as can be desired—a formulation in which, from its classificatory character, we seem certain of having nothing superfluous or redundant, and obtain the axioms explicitly in the most desirable form, namely as adjectives of the conception of space. At the same time, it is a pity that Riemann, in accordance with the metrical bias of his time, regarded space as primarily a magnitude[18], or assemblage of magnitudes, in which the main problem consists in assigning quantities to the different elements or points, without regard to the qualitative nature of the quantities assigned. Considerable obscurity thus arises as to the whole nature of magnitude[19]. This view of Geometry underlies the definition of the manifold, as the general conception of which space forms a special case. This definition, which is not very clear, may be rendered as follows. 19. Conceptions of magnitude, according to Riemann, are possible there only, where we have a general conception, capable of various determinations (Bestimmungsweisen). The various determinations of such a conception together form a manifold, which is continuous or discrete, according as the passage from one determination to another is continuous or discrete. Particular bits of a manifold, or quanta, can be compared by counting when discrete, and by measurement when continuous. "Measurement consists in a superposition of the magnitudes to be compared. If this be absent, magnitudes can only be compared when one is part of another, and then only the more or less, not the how much, can be decided" (p. 256). We thus reach the general conception of a manifold of several dimensions, of which space and colours are mentioned as special cases. To the absence of this conception Riemann attributes the "obscurity" which, on the subject of the axioms, "lasted from Euclid to Legendre" (p. 254). And Riemann certainly has succeeded, from an algebraic point of view, in exhibiting, far more clearly than any of his predecessors, the axioms which distinguish spatial quantity from other quantities with which mathematics is conversant. But by the assumption, from the start, that space can be regarded as a quantity, he has been led to state the problem as: What sort of magnitude is space? rather than: What must space be in order that we may be able to regard it as a magnitude at all? He does not realise, either—indeed in his day there were few who realized—that an elaborate Geometry is possible which does not deal with space as a quantity at all. His definition of space as a species of manifold, therefore, though for analytical purposes it defines, most satisfactorily, the nature of spatial magnitudes, leaves obscure the true ground for this nature, which lies in the nature of space as a system of relations, and is anterior to the possibility of regarding it as a system of magnitudes at all. But to proceed with the mathematical development of Riemann's ideas. We have seen that he declared measurement to consist in a superposition of the magnitudes to be compared. But in order that this may be a possible means of determining magnitudes, he continues, these magnitudes must be independent of their position in the manifold (p. 259). This can occur, he says, in several ways, as the simplest of which, he assumes that the lengths of lines are independent of their position. One would be glad to know what other ways are possible: for my part, I am unable to imagine any other hypothesis on which magnitude would be independent of place. Setting this aside, however, the problem, owing to the fact that measurement consists in superposition, becomes identical with the determination of the most general manifold in which magnitudes are independent of place. This brings us to Riemann's other fundamental conception, which seems to me even more fruitful than that of a manifold. 20. (2) Measure of curvature. This conception is due to Gauss, but was applied by him only to surfaces; the novelty in Riemann's dissertation was its extension to a manifold of n dimensions. This extension, however, is rather briefly and obscurely expressed, and has been further obscured by Helmholtz's attempts at popular exposition. The term curvature, also, is misleading, so that the phrase has been the source of more misunderstanding, even among mathematicians, than any other in Pangeometry. It is often forgotten, in spite of Helmholtz's explicit statement[20], that the "measure of curvature" of an n-dimensional manifold is a purely analytical expression, which has only a symbolic affinity to ordinary curvature. As applied to three-dimensional space, the implication of a four-dimensional "plane" space is wholly misleading; I shall, therefore, generally use the term space-constant instead[21]. Nevertheless, as the conception grew, historically, out of that of curvature, I will give a very brief exposition of the historical development of theories of curvature. Just as the notion of length was originally derived from the straight line, and extended to other curves by dividing them into infinitesimal straight lines, so the notion of curvature was derived from the circle, and extended to other curves by dividing them into infinitesimal circular arcs. Curvature may be regarded, originally, as a measure of the amount by which a curve departs from a straight line; in a circle, which is similar throughout, this amount is evidently constant, and is measured by the reciprocal of the radius. But in all other curves, the amount of curvature varies from point to point, so that it cannot be measured without infinitesimals. The measure which at once suggests itself is, the curvature of the circle most nearly coinciding with the curve at the point considered. Since a circle is determined by three points, this circle will pass through three consecutive points of the curve. We have thus defined the curvature of any curve, plane or tortuous; for, since any three points lie in a plane, such a circle can always be described. If we now pass to a surface, what we want is, by analogy, a measure of its departure from a plane. The curvature, as above defined, has become indeterminate, for through any point of the surface we can draw an infinite number of arcs, which will not, in general, all have the same curvature. Let us, then, draw all the geodesics joining the point in question to neighbouring points of the surface in all directions. Since these arcs form a singly infinite manifold, there will be among them, if they have not all the same curvature, one arc of maximum, and one of minimum curvature[22]. The product of these maximum and minimum curvatures is called the measure of curvature of the surface at the point under consideration. To illustrate by a few simple examples: on a sphere, the curvatures of all such lines are equal to the reciprocal of the radius of the sphere, hence the measure of curvature everywhere is the square of the reciprocal of the radius of the sphere. On any surface, such as a cone or a cylinder, on which straight lines can be drawn, these have no curvature, so that the measure of curvature is everywhere zero—this is the case, in particular, with the plane. In general, however, the measure of curvature of a surface varies from point to point. Gauss, the inventor of this conception[23], proved that, in order that two surfaces may be developable upon each other—i.e. may be such that one can be bent into the shape of the other without stretching or tearing—it is necessary that the two surfaces should have equal measures of curvature at corresponding points. When this is the case, every figure which is possible on the one is, in general, possible on the other, and the two have practically the same Geometry[24]. As a corollary, it follows that a necessary condition, for the free mobility of figures on any surface, is the constancy of the measure of curvature[25]. This condition was proved to be sufficient, as well as necessary, by Minding[26]. 21. So far, all has been plain sailing—we have been dealing with purely geometrical ideas in a purely geometrical manner—but we have not, as yet, found any sense of the measure of curvature, in which it can be extended to space, still less to an n-dimensional manifold. For this purpose, we must examine Gauss's method, which enables us to determine the measure of curvature of a surface at any point as an inherent property, quite independent of any reference to the third dimension. The method of determining the measure of curvature from within is, briefly, as follows: If any point on the surface be determined by two coordinates, u, v, then small arcs of the surface are given by the formula ds2 = Edu2 + 2Fdu dv + Gdv2, where E, F, G are, in general, functions of u, v.[27] From this formula alone, without reference to any space outside the surface, we