Exactly. Hobbes had a long bitter dispute with John Wallis, an eminent mathematician, on the issue. While many of Hobbes' arguments were so evidently fallacious that most mathematicians simply ignored Hobbes, Wallis thought it important to refute him because the concepts Hobbes used were relevant to his social ideas as well, ideas that Wallis thought it important to oppose. Hobbes actually wrote several treatises on the subject and refused to recognise his errors. There is a whole book on the issue. It is reviewed at this link:
http://www.maa.org/reviews/squaring.html Here is a paragraph from the review. Only death in his nineties stopped Hobbes' flow of fallacies and invective! The vociferous public quarrel between the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and the mathematician John Wallis (1616-1703) was a strange and unpleasant episode in the history of mathematics. In his De Corpore of 1655, Hobbes claimed quadrature of the circle, rectification of curvilinear arcs, and solutions of other outstanding geometric problems. Wallis replied in the same year with Elenchus Geometriae Hobbianae, in which he pointed out the many errors and generally deplorable state of Hobbes' geometry. This unleashed a continuing exchange of rebuttal and invective lasting until the end of Hobbes' life. Some of the flavor of the dispute can be gleaned from such titles as Hobbes' Six Lessons to the Professors of the Mathematiques (the other Oxford professor in the fray was Seth Ward, Savilian Professor of Astronomy), Wallis' Due Correction for Mr. Hobbes ... for not saying his Lessons right, or Hobbes' Markes of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish Church-Politicks, and Barbarismes of John Wallis. Cheers, Ken Hanly ----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 11:56 AM Subject: [PEN-L:24242] Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Nash, Harsanyi and Selten > > > > > > > >That would be *quadrature* of the circle (constructing a line equal in > >length to the circumference of any given circle). Squaring circles is > >impossible. > > > > > > Ken's joke is that Hobbes didn't believe this, he thought he had squared the > circle. > > jks > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. >
