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An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀξίωμα (axíōma), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'.
This is a list of axioms as that term is understood in mathematics. In epistemology , the word axiom is understood differently; see axiom and self-evidence . Individual axioms are almost always part of a larger axiomatic system .
The term axiomatic geometry can be applied to any geometry that is developed from an axiom system, but is often used to mean Euclidean geometry studied from this point of view. The completeness and independence of general axiomatic systems are important mathematical considerations, but there are also issues to do with the teaching of geometry ...
Euclidean geometry is an axiomatic system, in which all theorems ("true statements") are derived from a small number of simple axioms. Until the advent of non-Euclidean geometry, these axioms were considered to be obviously true in the physical world, so that all the theorems would be equally true. However, Euclid's reasoning from assumptions ...
Merely the use of formalism alone does not explain several issues: why we should use the axioms we do and not some others, why we should employ the logical rules we do and not some others, why "true" mathematical statements (e.g., the laws of arithmetic) appear to be true, and so on. Hermann Weyl posed these very questions to Hilbert:
The value of the Grundlagen is its pioneering approach to metamathematical questions, including the use of models to prove axioms independent; and the need to prove the consistency and completeness of an axiom system. Mathematics in the twentieth century evolved into a network of axiomatic formal systems.
This describes the scenario where the undefined terms of a first axiom system are provided definitions from a second, such that the axioms of the first are theorems of the second. A good example is the relative consistency of absolute geometry with respect to the theory of the real number system.
Synthetic geometry (sometimes referred to as axiomatic geometry or even pure geometry) is geometry without the use of coordinates. It relies on the axiomatic method for proving all results from a few basic properties initially called postulates , and at present called axioms .