Talk:Foundations of geometry

Postulational method

One of the sources for this article is Edwin Moise’s Elementary Geometry from an Advanced Standpoint. Chapter 27 provides a retrospective view of postulates in geometry. Apparently Lipman Bers was the first to note a shift in attitude between Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. In the Declaration of Independence there are truths held to be self-evident. In the Gettysburg Address the nation is dedicated to a proposition. Moise connects this shift to the non-Euclidean challenge to traditional postulates. In his opinion, "a shift in philosophy had been developing independently of the mathematicians, and that this helped to give mathematicians the courage to undertake non-Euclidean investigations and publish the results." The observation and remarks are repeated in H. S. M. Coxeter’s review of Moise’s book (MR 149339).Rgdboer (talk) 20:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Summary style

Per WP:SUMMARY, I think it would be helpful to add paragraph-length descriptions of each of the articles called out by the "main article" templates in this article, rather than just having a bare link to the other article with no description of what's in it or how it relates to the topic of this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

It's coming. My procedure for fleshing this article out was to start with an appropriate (and easily modified) outline, fill in the portions that are not well represented elsewhere in WP, and then put in the summaries of what is important here that can be found elsewhere. I'm just about ready to start putting in the summaries. The advantage (in my eyes) of doing it this way is that I am leaving the door open for other editors to fill in these gaps while maintaining some semblance of overall organization. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 05:14, 11 September 2013 (UTC)