On the history and degree of certain geometrical approximations

Abstract

According to Luther's translation 1 Kings vi. 31 should read— “At the entrance of the choir he made two doors with pentagonal door-posts.” This is probably a wrong translation, for nowhere on Asiatic monuments of this time has a pentagon been found. Prof. A. Merx in Cantor's Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathemalik, Vol. i., p. 91.It is probable that the construction of the regular pentagon is due to the Pythagorean school as a consequence of I. 47. (Ibid, p. 151.)