Debating Grassmann's mathematics
Schlegel vs. Klein
pp. 95-103
in: , A richer picture of mathematics, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
Mathematical fame can be a fickle thing, little more enduring than its mundane counterparts, success and recognition. Sometimes it sticks, but for odd or obscure reasons. Take the case of a largely forgotten figure named Victor Schlegel (1843–1905): googling for "Schlegel diagrams' immediately brings up scads of colored graphics depicting plane projections of 4-dimensional polyhedra. None that I found, however, could compare with the figures that appear in a little-known paper (Schlegel 1883). It seems these figures are aptly named, but how and when they came to be called Schlegel diagrams remains a mystery (see also (Schlegel 1886)). In fact, clicking through Wikipedia, MacTutor, and their progeny for Victor Schlegel turns up nothing; nor does he appear in standard compendia, like the Lexikon bedeutender Mathematiker.