In Chinese and foreign history, there are always many geniuses, and there are always many buried and suppressed geniuses. Copernicus, the most famous genius, discovered Heliocentrism, but dared not publish it. He was afraid to publish his research results until his death. Bruno, who preached Copernicus, was burned to death in Rome Square by the Inquisition Committee on the grounds of "religious heresy".
There are too many such things in the history of world science. For example, Darwin put forward the theory of evolution, which proved the special connection between species and natural selection. But Darwin took the blame for 100 years for the "humanoid monkey", and countless people spoke to him. It was not until the 20th century that DNA theory gave the most complete explanation of evolution. At that time, Darwin's death was close to 100 reading.
As the mother of science, mathematics has always been the leader in leading the progress of basic science. However, the debate on mathematical theory is not worse than astronomy, biology and physics, or even more intense.
1, the choice of genius
/kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, a profound revolution was brewing in the field of mathematics. In Russia and Hungary, three mathematicians respectively proved that "when parallel lines intersect, the sum of the internal angles of a triangle is not equal to 180". The three scientists are Russian Lobachevsky and German Gauss.
As far as its popularity is concerned, Lobachevsky is far less than Gauss, who is called "the father of European mathematics". However, in the theory of proving and adhering to the intersection of parallel lines, Gauss's image is so small.
Lobachevsky began to study the theory of parallel lines as early as 18 15. The theory of parallel lines at that time was basically based on Euclid's geometry. Euclid has long given the "substrate postulate" on parallel lines:
If a line segment intersects two straight lines, and the sum of the internal angles of one side is less than the sum of two right angles, then the two straight lines will intersect at the side where the sum of the internal angles and the two right angles is less than each other after continuous extension.
There is no doubt that Euclid's fifth postulate not only conforms to people's common sense, but also is one of the foundations of the whole traditional geometry. When Lobachevsky came across a conclusion that conflicted with the fifth postulate, he did not hesitate to break through the traditional shackles and put forward his own set of geometric theories.
Lobachevsky is a mathematical genius. /kloc-entered Kazan university at the age of 0/5, and/kloc-obtained a master's degree in physical mathematics at the age of 0/9, and taught at Kazan university. By the time he was 30, Lobachevsky had become a tenured professor and a rising star in Russian mathematics. However, just as Lobachevsky's career Ran Ran rose, Lobachevsky made a major decision to overthrow Euclid's Elements with his own research!
It takes courage and courage to make such a decision. Lobachevsky knew the consequences of challenging Euclid, the father of geometry, but he did it anyway.
Lobachevsky denied the conclusion that the existing two straight lines must not intersect with sufficient evidence, and deduced that "if you cross a point outside the straight line on the plane, you can at least conclude that the two straight lines do not intersect with the known straight lines". 1826 On February 23rd, Lobachevsky read his first paper on non-Euclidean geometry at the academic conference of the Department of Physical Mathematics of Kazan University: the abstraction of geometric principles and the strict proof of parallelism theorem. This meeting became a turning point in his life. He is only 34 years old this year.
2. Crowding out and suppressing
Before that, Lobachevsky was recognized by almost all Russian mathematicians. As soon as this conclusion came out, almost all mathematicians stayed away from him like a plague.
1829, Lobachevsky was called the president of Kazan university, and then 1932, his theory was sent to Petersburg Academy of Sciences, where he was mercilessly attacked and ridiculed.
At first it was Ostrogradski, who said, "It seems that the author is writing a book that people can't understand. He achieved his goal. "
Subsequently, the attack on Lobachevsky began to turn into a personal attack.
However, Lobachevsky did not give up. He insisted on going his own way, although no one understood. Many years later, Lobachevsky perfected his theory and formed a set of "non-Euclidean geometry" system.
In fact, Lobachevsky was attacked and laughed at in this way until he died alone, and his theory was not accepted. Fundamentally speaking, the main reason is that there were too many cowards and too few brave people in European mathematics at that time; Do too much and do too little.
3. Gauss's selfishness and cowardice
The most typical example is Gauss, who was later called "the king of European mathematics". As early as 1792, when Lobachevsky was a baby, Gauss formed the idea of non-Euclidean geometry. By 18 17, Gauss's theory of non-Euclidean geometry had formed a system. However, Gauss, who has a long-standing reputation, is afraid of being attacked by European mathematics circles and dare not publish his achievements in this field.
When Gauss saw Lobachevsky's paper, he made up his mind to learn Russian, so as to know Roche's research results for the first time. But Gauss only talked about his appreciation of Roche in small talk and never showed his support for Roche and his theory.
Roche, a wise man in mathematics and a brave man in research, has become a downright weak person in life. Roche was later relieved of all his duties and could no longer work in the university. Roche's son died in his later years, and he was also ill. Finally, he went blind and died in loneliness and desolation.
At Roche's memorial service, everyone unanimously praised his achievements in the construction of Kazan University, but avoided talking about the achievements in the establishment of non-Euclidean geometry, as if this was the most shameful thing in the history of Russian mathematics.
Perhaps Roche's efforts were against the will of the public from the beginning. Euclidean geometry ruled the whole geometric world for more than two thousand years. They don't welcome the challenger. It was not until 1968 that an Italian mathematician published a famous paper "An Attempt to Explain Non-Euclidean Geometry" that the conflict between Euclidean Geometry and Non-Euclidean Geometry was finally reconciled.
However, Gauss, the king of European mathematics, is always isolated from non-Euclidean geometry. Almost all non-Euclidean geometry researchers regard Lobachevsky as the founder, not Euclidean geometry, also known as "Roche geometry".
1893, Kazan University established the world's first mathematician statue. This mathematician is Lobachevsky, a great Russian scholar and an important founder of non-Euclidean geometry. Here, Lobachevsky finally got everyone's approval.