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I'm looking for examples of abandoned or demised notions/concepts in mathematics, preferably (but not necessarily) after the age of foundations. To be clear: I'm not looking for abandoned ideas or theories (as opposed to notions or concepts); neither am I looking for revised (as opposed to abandoned) notions -- I'm aware that there is plenty of both kinds. To illustrate what I'm looking for, consider the notion of phlogiston in natural sciences. Do we have anything like that in math?

Thank you very much!

gmvh
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qk11
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1 Answers1

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How about consulting Euclid's Elements?

The three main classes of irrational magnitudes are the medial, binomial, and apotome. ... It was Euclid who generalized the idea of commensurable and incommensurable to squares, and also ordered the binomial and apotome irrational lines into six distinct classes each (Knorr, 1983).

Gerald Edgar
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