Raiders of the Lost (Continued)
"Socrates: They say that the soul of man is immortal…."
From August 16, 2012—
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—
A more correct version, from hermes-press.com —
|
Socrates: He only guesses that because the square is double, the line is double.Meno: True.
Socrates: Observe him while he recalls the steps in regular order. (To the Boy.) Tell me, boy, do you assert that a double space comes from a double line? Remember that I am not speaking of an oblong, but of a figure equal every way, and twice the size of this-that is to say of eight feet; and I want to know whether you still say that a double square comes from double line? [Boy] Yes. Socrates: But does not this line (AB) become doubled if we add another such line here (BJ is added)? [Boy] Certainly.
Socrates: And four such lines [AJ, JK, KL, LA] will make a space containing eight feet? [Boy] Yes. Socrates: Let us draw such a figure: (adding DL, LK, and JK). Would you not say that this is the figure of eight feet? [Boy] Yes. Socrates: And are there not these four squares in the figure, each of which is equal to the figure of four feet? (Socrates draws in CM and CN) [Boy] True. Socrates: And is not that four times four? [Boy] Certainly. Socrates: And four times is not double? [Boy] No, indeed. Socrates: But how much? [Boy] Four times as much. Socrates: Therefore the double line, boy, has given a space, not twice, but four times as much. [Boy] True. Socrates: Four times four are sixteen— are they not? [Boy] Yes. |
As noted in the 2012 post, the diagram of greater interest is
Jowett's incorrect version rather than the more correct version
shown above. This is because the 1892 version inadvertently
illustrates a tesseract:
A 4×4 square version, by Coxeter in 1950, of a tesseract—
This square version we may call the Galois tesseract.