[FOM] An historical question concerning curves

[Arnold Neumaier]

Arnon Avron schrieb:
> I would be grateful to hear from experts in the history
> of mathematics about the origins of the concept of a 
> curve (in a plane): what was the original intuition
> behind it, and how did it evolve to the notion usually
> taught today. Also: to what extent the usual current
> notion reflects the assumed properties of its origin?

The web page
    Curve. History
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve#History
gives a little bit of information, while
    Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics
    http://jeff560.tripod.com/mathword.html
and
    MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
    http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/index.html
seem to say nothing about this.


Arnold Neumaier