Mathematician:Edward J. Goodwin

Mathematician

Indiana physician and amateur mathematician who believed he had squared the circle, trisected the angle and doubled the cube.

He proposed a bill to allow for the charging of royalties for the use of the value of $\pi$ (pi) that he had calculated.

It was rejected before the second reading through the efforts of Clarence Abiathar Waldo.

Nationality

American

History

• Born: c. 1825
• Died: 1902

Publications

• 1894: Queries and Information: Quadrature of the Circle (Amer. Math. Monthly Vol. 1, no. 7: pp. 246 – 247)  www.jstor.org/stable/2971093

• 1895: Queries and Information: (A) The trisection of an angle (Amer. Math. Monthly Vol. 2, no. 11: p. 337)  www.jstor.org/stable/2971569

• 1895: Queries and Information: (B) Duplication of the Cube (Amer. Math. Monthly Vol. 2, no. 11: p. 337)  www.jstor.org/stable/2971569

• 1897: Indiana Pi Bill

Critical View

... his solutions of the trisection of the angle, doubling the cube and quadrature of the circle having been already accepted as contributions to science by the American Mathematical Monthly ... And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as unsolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.

It is necessary to point out that those contributions to the American Mathematical Monthly were published "By the request of the author" and therefore have no intellectual standing, not having been subject to the necessary level of peer review.

Also known as

Some sources cite him (probably erroneously) as Edwin J. Goodwin.

Sources

• 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $3 \cdotp 14159 \, 26535 \, 89793 \, 23846 \, 26433 \, 83279 \, 50288 \, 41972 \ldots$
• 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $3 \cdotp 14159 \, 26535 \, 89793 \, 23846 \, 26433 \, 83279 \, 50288 \, 41971 \ldots$