János Bolyai’s New Face

6. Conclusions

There are very few scientists whose work is appreciated in their life-time. The inventors of non-Euclidean geometry did not have the opportunity to enjoy the triumph of their discovery. Above all, János Bolyai deserved a better lot. His demonstration that the Euclidean axiom of parallelism was independent of other axioms ended a period of development of two millennia. He solved one of the most lasting problems of geometry and thus created modern geometry. At the same time, he also obtained significant results in other branches of mathematics.

Now, at his bicentennial it is important to evoke his course of life, his ideas and his achivements in mathematics in the light of the most recent research. Thus, we can get a more detailed and colourful portrait of the great inventor.