(Continued from August 13. See also Coxeter Graveyard.)
Here the tombstone says
"GEOMETRY… 600 BC — 1900 AD… R.I.P."
In the geometry of Plato illustrated below,
"the figure of eight [square] feet" is not , at this point
in the dialogue, the diamond in Jowett's picture.
An 1892 figure by Jowett illustrating Plato's Meno—
Jowett's picture is nonetheless of interest for
its resemblance to a figure drawn some decades later
by the Toronto geometer H. S. M. Coxeter.
A similar 1950 figure by Coxeter illustrating a tesseract—
For a less scholarly, but equally confusing, view of the number 8,
see The Eight , a novel by Katherine Neville.