Angle Trisected?
Given: Any angle whatever. Required: to divide any angle into three equal parts, using only straight lines and circles in the construction. Thousands of mathematicians have sought to solve that problem. It is comparatively easy of solution with a peculiarly linked chain or by means of complex curves which no compass can draw on a flat surface; but impossible, mathematicians generally agree, with the simple tools of straightedge and compass.
Last week the new, bland, stiff-collared president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Very Rev. Jeremiah Joseph Callahan.* declared "the problem can easily be solved by plane geometry." He said he had done it in less than two months after the June semester closed. His mathematical reputation (his book Euclid or Einstein? on parallelism is to be published next month) gives prestige to his statement. The Callahan trisection depends "on the geometry of a plane figure that is not treated in Euclid, or in those modern works that are based on Euclid. When certain theorems concerning this figure are demonstrated, the problem of the trisection of the angle is quite simple." But what the figure is and what the theorems, President Callahan, like the Bostonian trisectors, would not disclose last week. He too wanted copyright first. He was at Chippewa Falls, Wis. for the 75th anniversary celebration of Notre Dame Church, where once he preached. A friendly man, medium tall, 53, a horse back rider when he has time & opportunity, he was amused at the excitement over his statement. Said he: "Trisection has no special practical applications. . . . It is a matter of pure science or, rather, pure mathematics."
*President, 1916-31, Holy Ghost College, Nornwell Heights, Pa.