Was Euclid’s 5th Postulate Ever Formally Proven

euclidean-geometrymath-history

When reading about the history of Euclid's Elements, one finds a pretty length story about the Greeks and Arabs spending countless hours trying to prove Euclid's 5th Postulate.

But I've yet to come across a source stating that "this is the man who finally proved the 5th postulate!"

Has it ever been formally proven, or am I misunderstanding the issue?

Best Answer

You misunderstood the issue. The creation of non-Euclidean Geometries (more specifically Hyperbolic Geometry) allowed us to see that the fifth postulate cannot be deduced from the other postulates.