Lobachevsky's Views of Geometry

Abstract

Lobachevsky's discovery of Non-Euclidean geometry was a byproduct of his more ambitious plan of reforming the traditional Euclid-style foundations of geometry. This project aligned with d'Alembert's and Condillac's practically-oriented visions of mathematics and aimed at closing the perceived gap between the pure mathematics, on the one hand, and the natural sciences and engineering, on the other hand. Following d'Alembert Lobachevsky deliberately avoided the axiomatic development of his geometrical theory and combined instead some preliminary intuitive synthetic constructions with their rigorous analytic treatment. In addition to Non-Euclidean geometry, Lobachevsky's project brought about an early form of Dimension theory. The paper comprises a description of the local context of Lobachevsky's works, including some pointers to Russian geometry textbooks of the beginning of the 19th century. We summarise Lobachevsky's philosophical views which motivated his mathematical achievements and show how these motivations were misunderstood and misinterpreted in the beginning of the 20th century by Henri Poincar\'e and Ernst Cassirer. Finally we argue that Lobachevsky's epistemic views remain pertinent in the context of the ongoing discussion about the reunion of mathematics and physics. The \emph{Appendix} comprises English translations of eight Lobachevsky's documents of various length and character where he expresses his general epistemic views on mathematics and, in particular, geometry.