“The relationship of point to line”

—  Morris Kline

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 176
Context: The relationship of point to line bothered the Greeks and led Aristotle to separate the two. Though he admits points are on lines, he says that a line is not made up of points and that the continuous cannot be made up of the discrete. This distinction contributed also to the presumed need for separating number from geometry, since to the Greeks numbers were discrete and geometry dealt with continuous magnitudes.

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Morris Kline 42
American mathematician 1908–1992

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