1835-1900

Italian mathematician who showed that the non-Euclidean geometry of Nikolai Lobachevski is consistent by mapping it onto Euclidean geometry—he identified the straight lines of this non-Euclidean geometry with geodesics on surfaces of constant curvature—and so opened a new way of thinking about mathematical structures. In his later work in applied mathematics, on fluid theory and elasticity, Beltrami remained interested in the underlying conceptions of space in these theories.