- Hungarian mathematician,
father of János Bolyai; their work on geometry is closely interlinked.
Bolyai was born in Nagyszeben, Hungary (now Sibiu, Romania), and studied
mathematics at Göttingen, Germany, where he made friends with
German mathematician Karl Gauss. Bolyai taught at colleges first in
Nagyszeben and then in Marosvásárhely (now Tirgu Mures,
Romania) until 1853.
His son's growing interest in higher mathematics inspired Bolyai to
write the book Tentamen juventutem/Attempt to Introduce Studious Youth
into the Elements of Pure Mathematics 1832-33, a survey of mathematics.
He also tried to find a proof for Euclid's fifth postulate - that
parallel lines do not meet - and János caught his enthusiasm.
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