The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 9

This interpretation moreover is not unique, and several dictionaries a.n.a.logous to the preceding could be constructed, which would enable us by a simple 'translation' to transform Lobachevski's theorems into theorems of ordinary geometry.

THE IMPLICIT AXIOMS.--Are the axioms explicitly enunciated in our treatises the sole foundations of geometry? We may be a.s.sured of the contrary by noticing that after they are successively abandoned there are still left over some propositions common to the theories of Euclid, Lobachevski and Riemann. These propositions must rest on premises the geometers admit without enunciation. It is interesting to try to disentangle them from the cla.s.sic demonstrations.

Stuart Mill has claimed that every definition contains an axiom, because in defining one affirms implicitly the existence of the object defined. This is going much too far; it is rare that in mathematics a definition is given without its being followed by the demonstration of the existence of the object defined, and when this is dispensed with it is generally because the reader can easily supply it. It must not be forgotten that the word existence has not the same sense when it refers to a mathematical ent.i.ty and when it is a question of a material object.

A mathematical ent.i.ty exists, provided its definition implies no contradiction, either in itself, or with the propositions already admitted.

But if Stuart Mill's observation can not be applied to all definitions, it is none the less just for some of them. The plane is sometimes defined as follows:

The plane is a surface such that the straight which joins any two of its points is wholly on this surface.

This definition manifestly hides a new axiom; it is true we might change it, and that would be preferable, but then we should have to enunciate the axiom explicitly.

Other definitions would suggest reflections not less important.

Such, for example, is that of the equality of two figures; two figures are equal when they can be superposed; to superpose them one must be displaced until it coincides with the other; but how shall it be displaced? If we should ask this, no doubt we should be told that it must be done without altering the shape and as a rigid solid. The vicious circle would then be evident.

In fact this definition defines nothing; it would have no meaning for a being living in a world where there were only fluids. If it seems clear to us, that is because we are used to the properties of natural solids which do not differ much from those of the ideal solids, all of whose dimensions are invariable.

Yet, imperfect as it may be, this definition implies an axiom.

The possibility of the motion of a rigid figure is not a self-evident truth, or at least it is so only in the fas.h.i.+on of Euclid's postulate and not as an a.n.a.lytic judgment _a priori_ would be.

Moreover, in studying the definitions and the demonstrations of geometry, we see that one is obliged to admit without proof not only the possibility of this motion, but some of its properties besides.

This is at once seen from the definition of the straight line. Many defective definitions have been given, but the true one is that which is implied in all the demonstrations where the straight line enters:

"It may happen that the motion of a rigid figure is such that all the points of a line belonging to this figure remain motionless while all the points situated outside of this line move. Such a line will be called a straight line." We have designedly, in this enunciation, separated the definition from the axiom it implies.

Many demonstrations, such as those of the cases of the equality of triangles, of the possibility of dropping a perpendicular from a point to a straight, presume propositions which are not enunciated, for they require the admission that it is possible to transport a figure in a certain way in s.p.a.ce.

THE FOURTH GEOMETRY.--Among these implicit axioms, there is one which seems to me to merit some attention, because when it is abandoned a fourth geometry can be constructed as coherent as those of Euclid, Lobachevski and Riemann.

To prove that a perpendicular may always be erected at a point _A_ to a straight _AB_, we consider a straight _AC_ movable around the point _A_ and initially coincident with the fixed straight _AB_; and we make it turn about the point _A_ until it comes into the prolongation of _AB_.

Thus two propositions are presupposed: First, that such a rotation is possible, and next that it may be continued until the two straights come into the prolongation one of the other.

If the first point is admitted and the second rejected, we are led to a series of theorems even stranger than those of Lobachevski and Riemann, but equally exempt from contradiction.

I shall cite only one of these theorems and that not the most singular: _A real straight may be perpendicular to itself_.

LIE'S THEOREM.--The number of axioms implicitly introduced in the cla.s.sic demonstrations is greater than necessary, and it would be interesting to reduce it to a minimum. It may first be asked whether this reduction is possible, whether the number of necessary axioms and that of imaginable geometries are not infinite.

A theorem of Sophus Lie dominates this whole discussion. It may be thus enunciated:

Suppose the following premises are admitted:

1 s.p.a.ce has _n_ dimensions;

2 The motion of a rigid figure is possible;

3 It requires _p_ conditions to determine the position of this figure in s.p.a.ce.

_The number of geometries compatible with these premises will be limited._

I may even add that if _n_ is given, a superior limit can be a.s.signed to _p_.

If therefore the possibility of motion is admitted, there can be invented only a finite (and even a rather small) number of three-dimensional geometries.

RIEMANN'S GEOMETRIES.--Yet this result seems contradicted by Riemann, for this savant constructs an infinity of different geometries, and that to which his name is ordinarily given is only a particular case.

All depends, he says, on how the length of a curve is defined. Now, there is an infinity of ways of defining this length, and each of them may be the starting point of a new geometry.

That is perfectly true, but most of these definitions are incompatible with the motion of a rigid figure, which in the theorem of Lie is supposed possible. These geometries of Riemann, in many ways so interesting, could never therefore be other than purely a.n.a.lytic and would not lend themselves to demonstrations a.n.a.logous to those of Euclid.

ON THE NATURE OF AXIOMS.--Most mathematicians regard Lobachevski's geometry only as a mere logical curiosity; some of them, however, have gone farther. Since several geometries are possible, is it certain ours is the true one? Experience no doubt teaches us that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles; but this is because the triangles we deal with are too little; the difference, according to Lobachevski, is proportional to the surface of the triangle; will it not perhaps become sensible when we shall operate on larger triangles or when our measurements shall become more precise? The Euclidean geometry would thus be only a provisional geometry.

To discuss this opinion, we should first ask ourselves what is the nature of the geometric axioms.

Are they synthetic _a priori_ judgments, as Kant said?

They would then impose themselves upon us with such force that we could not conceive the contrary proposition, nor build upon it a theoretic edifice. There would be no non-Euclidean geometry.

To be convinced of it take a veritable synthetic _a priori_ judgment, the following, for instance, of which we have seen the preponderant role in the first chapter:

_If a theorem is true for the number 1, and if it has been proved that it is true of n + 1 provided it is true of n, it will be true of all the positive whole numbers._

Then try to escape from that and, denying this proposition, try to found a false arithmetic a.n.a.logous to non-Euclidean geometry--it can not be done; one would even be tempted at first blush to regard these judgments as a.n.a.lytic.

Moreover, resuming our fiction of animals without thickness, we can hardly admit that these beings, if their minds are like ours, would adopt the Euclidean geometry which would be contradicted by all their experience.

Should we therefore conclude that the axioms of geometry are experimental verities? But we do not experiment on ideal straights or circles; it can only be done on material objects. On what then could be based experiments which should serve as foundation for geometry? The answer is easy.

We have seen above that we constantly reason as if the geometric figures behaved like solids. What geometry would borrow from experience would therefore be the properties of these bodies. The properties of light and its rectilinear propagation have also given rise to some of the propositions of geometry, and in particular those of projective geometry, so that from this point of view one would be tempted to say that metric geometry is the study of solids, and projective, that of light.

But a difficulty remains, and it is insurmountable. If geometry were an experimental science, it would not be an exact science, it would be subject to a continual revision. Nay, it would from this very day be convicted of error, since we know that there is no rigorously rigid solid.

The _axioms of geometry therefore are neither synthetic_ a priori _judgments nor experimental facts_.

They are _conventions_; our choice among all possible conventions is _guided_ by experimental facts; but it remains _free_ and is limited only by the necessity of avoiding all contradiction. Thus it is that the postulates can remain _rigorously_ true even though the experimental laws which have determined their adoption are only approximative.

In other words, _the axioms of geometry_ (I do not speak of those of arithmetic) _are merely disguised definitions_.

Then what are we to think of that question: Is the Euclidean geometry true?

It has no meaning.

As well ask whether the metric system is true and the old measures false; whether Cartesian coordinates are true and polar coordinates false. One geometry can not be more true than another; it can only be _more convenient_.