Tag Archives: Dostoevski

Seventeen Sides

July 11, 2026 – 6:39 pm

Here are my slides on the construction of the heptakaidecagon. I have referred to them before, as detailed below, but I have edited them (slightly) since, and I wanted to have a fixed home for them. That will be this post.

I call them slides, because the page size is A6, in landscape orientation, and most pages are self-contained, except for the six pages of the Introduction. There are 80 pages, all told, last edited June 13 of this year (2026). A circle is divided into seventeen equal arcs, with ruler and compass alone, and then a proof that the circle has been so divided is given in Euclidean terms.

One purpose then is to contemplate why the Ancients did not discover the construction.

By David Pierce | Posted in Exposition, Mathematics | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Learning mathematics

May 14, 2013 – 11:23 am

This is mostly reminiscences about high school. I also give some opinions about how mathematics ought to be learned. The post originally formed one piece with my last article, “Limits.”

I learned calculus, and the epsilon-delta definition of limit, in Washington D.C., in my last two years at St Albans School, in a course taught by a peculiar fellow named Donald J. Brown. The first of these two years was officially called Precalculus Honors, but some time in that year, we started in on calculus proper.

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By David Pierce | Posted in Archimedes, Calculus, Education, Euclid, G. H. Hardy, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy of Mathematics, Strunk and White | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)