Torsten Brodén's work on the foundations of Euclidean geometry

Journal article, 2007

The Swedish mathematician Torsten Brodén (1857-1931) wrote two articles on the foundations of Euclidean geometry. The first was published in 1890, almost a decade before Hilbert's first attempt, and the second was published in 1912. Brodén's philosophical view of the nature of geometry is discussed and his thoughts on axiomatic systems are described. His axiomatic system for Euclidean geometry from 1890 is considered in detail and compared with his later work on the foundations of geometry. The two continuity axioms given are compared to and proved to imply Hilbert's two continuity axioms of 1903.