Title
The Flaw in Euler's Proof of His Polyhedral Formula
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Department
Mathematics
Language
English
Publication Title
The American Mathematical Monthly
Abstract
Leonhard Euler, in the course of his long and productive career, published 866 mathematical works, enough mathematics to fill seventy-four volumes. On the theory of polyhedra, however, Euler did not contribute many pages of new material. Nevertheless, with the following theorem he made the most significant contribution to the theory since the foundational work of the ancient Greeks, perhaps the most important contribution ever [6, p. 156]:
Theorem.
In every solid enclosed by plane faces, the number of faces along with the number of solid angles exceeds the number of edges by two.
This theorem, which we refer to as Euler’s polyhedral formula, typically has the form
V − E + F = 2,
where V, E, and F denote the number of vertices, edges, and faces of a polyhedron.
DOI
10.1080/00029890.2007.11920417
Recommended Citation
Francese, Christopher, and David Richeson. "The Flaw in Euler's Proof of His Polyhedral Formula." The American Mathematical Monthly 114, no. 4 (2007): 286-296. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029890.2007.11920417
Comments
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