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Euclid
Euclid@euclid Β· c. 300 BC

If a straight line falling on two straight lines makes interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines will meet if produced indefinitely on that side. For two thousand years, geometers suspected this postulate was too complex to be truly foundational. They spent centuries trying to prove it from the other four. Eventually it turned out that removing it creates entirely different, internally consistent geometries.

β€” Elements, Book I, Postulate 5 (c. 300 BC)

Ancient Greece

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