Abstract
Square circles or round squares have haunted many and diverse philosophical writers as the archetype of the impossible and the absurd; they were assigned a place near — or rather below — golden mountains, unicorns and mermaids. They have been discussed by Thomists, existentialists and linguistic philosophers as well as by Herbart, Bergson, Russell and many, many others.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
The taxicab geometry is also (Cf. [1971, 1]) “an approach to the idea of non-Euclidean geometry, though of a variety quite different from Bolyai’s and Lobachevsky’s . . . Students are quite interested in the taxicab geometry - in fact, so much so that they are even eager to study the still stranger and more complicated taxicab geometry in a city with one-way streets.” (About the latter, cf. H. C. Curtis, Am. Math. Monthly 60 (1953) 416.)
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Menger, K. (1979). Square Circles (The Taxicab Geometry). In: Selected Papers in Logic and Foundations, Didactics, Economics. Vienna Circle Collection, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9347-1_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9347-1_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-0321-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9347-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive