Klügel

Georg Simon Klügel

Born: 19 Aug 1739 in Hamburg, Germany
Died: 4 Aug 1812 in Halle, Germany

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Klügel studied at Göttingen under Kaestner where he wrote a thesis in 1763 on the parallel postulate. In this work he listed nearly 30 attempts to prove the fifth axiom and correctly concluded that the 'proofs' were all false. His work is cited by almost all later contributors to non-euclidean geometry.

Klügel also made an exceptional contribution to trigonometry, unifying formulas and introducing the concept of trigonometric function. Euler, who studied similar problems 9 years later, in some respects achieved less than Klügel in this area.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. M Cantor, Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik IV (Leipzig, 1908).
  3. A H Niemeyer, Obituary of Georg Simon Klügel, Hallisches patriotisches Wochenblatt (1812), 561-569. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996