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How the Four-Color Conjecture Was Born

In: The New Mathematical Coloring Book

Author

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  • Alexander Soifer

    (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)

Abstract

It takes time and effort to gain access and read manuscripts. The two letters containing the first mention of the 4CC are of high importance; yet, to the best of my knowledge, their complete facsimiles have never been published before. Selected transcriptions served a purpose, but, as we will see in Sect. 19.2, they contained certain shortcomings. In view of this, I am reproducing here, for the first time, the facsimile of De Morgan’s letter to Hamilton and the relevant fragment of Hamilton’s reply. Seeing – and reading – these letters allows us to immerse in the World Victorian. Analysis of these documents and the corrected transcription of De Morgan’s letter will follow. I am grateful to the Board of Trinity College Dublin, whose kind permission made reproducing these letters ([DeM1] and [Ham]) possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Soifer, 2024. "How the Four-Color Conjecture Was Born," Springer Books, in: The New Mathematical Coloring Book, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 185-200, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-0716-3597-1_19
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3597-1_19
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