Although Euclid tried his best to make his axiomatic system in the Elements

as logically sound as possible, the system Is not without its flaws, such as the
loopholes in some proofs, the reliance on diagrams and so on.
The Parallel Postulate
A straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the
same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced
indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right
angles.
This postulate is also known as parallel postulate.
Compare it to other postulates it seems not so self-evident. Therefore,
one of the earlier criticisms of Euclids Elements is that Postulate 5 is really
not a postulate. It should be proved from the first four postulates. For two
thousand years, many famous mathematicians tried numerous attempts to
prove it. However, no one could provide a valid proof and the best they could
do was to obtain some seemingly self-evident statements, which are
equivalent to Postulate 5. The following are two examples of this kind of
statements.
Playfairs axiom-Through any point not on a given line, at most one line
can be drawn parallel to the given line (i.e. it does not intersect with the
given line)
Sum of angles of triangle-the sum of angles of every triangle is 180
degrees.
Remark: In many modern geometry textbooks, Postulate 5 is replaced by
Playfairs axiom, which is easier to understand.
Development of Non-Euclidean Geometry
In the nineteenth century, mathematicians finally began to explore the
possibility of obtaining a logically consistent system by assuming that
Postulate 5 is false. In 1830, the Hungarian mathematician Janos Bolyai and
the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky separately
published treatises on hyperbolic geometry-a new kind of geometry that
replaces Postulate 5 by the following twist of Playfairs axiom;
Through any point not on a given line, at least two distinct lines can be
drawn parallel to the given line.
This is of course not the usual
kind of geometry we know. But in
fact, this new kind of geometry can
be realized by the so-called Poincare
half-plane
model,
which
was
developed by Eugenio Beltrami.
Firstly, the upper half-plane
we consider does not include the boundary line. Secondly, semi-circles and

straight lines perpendicular to the boundary line of upper half-plane are

defined as lines in this model. They are called h-lines.
Postulates of hyperbolic geometry:
(Postulate 1) An h-line can be drawn to connect any two points in the
upper half-plane.
(Postulate 5 for hyperbolic geometry) for any given h-line (the red line)
and a point P, which is not on the given h-line, there exist at least two
distinct h-lines passing through P such that they do not intersect the
given h-line.
In general, a geometry that assumes that Postulate 5 is false is called a nonEuclidean geometry.
Spherical Geometry
Here is another example of non-Euclidean geometry that is closely related to
us: Assume the Earth is a sphere, we can define a line between two points
on the surface of the Earth to be the shortest path between the two points. In
other words, a line must be a part of a great circle on the Earth. More
generally, the geometry on the surface of a sphere is called spherical
geometry.
Postulates of spherical geometry:
(Postulate 1) A line can be drawn to connect any two points.
(Postulate 5 for spherical geometry) For any given line and a point P
which is not on the line, all the lines through P must intersect the given
line.
Proposition 4 Revisited
Recall that Proposition 4 states the condition for congruent triangles (S.A.S.).
It is an important proposition because it is used in proofs of many later
propositions.
However, Euclids proof of this proposition is problematic. Triangle ABC
is moved to triangle PQR such that AB coincides with PQ and then Euclid
claimed that AC also coincides with PR since the angle BAC and angle QPR
are equal. In other words, BAC can be copied to angle QPR.
But the fact that an angle can be copied is not proved until in
Proposition 23 in Book I. Moreover, Proposition 4 is used in the proof of
Proposition 23! This is what we call a circular argument You use X to prove
Y and then you use Y to prove X. Obviously, this is not allowed in logical
deduction.
How to solve this problem? If we cannot prove Proposition 4, we can
regard it as a postulate! In the modern axiomatic system of geometry, the
triangle congruence condition S.A.S. is in fact a postulate.
All Triangles are Isosceles

Another criticism of Euclids Elements is that some of the proofs are based on
reasoning from diagram. But sometimes diagram can be misleading. Lets
take a look at the proof of the following proposition:
All triangles are isosceles.
Proof:
Given: BD=DC, angle HAF=angle GAF, FD is perpendicular to BC, FH
is perpendicular to AB and FG is perpendicular to AC.
Step 1: triangle AHF congruent to triangle AGF (A.A.S.)
Step 2: triangle BFD congruent to triangle CFD (S.A.S)
Step 3: angle FHB=angle FGC=90 degrees
FH=FG (by step 1)
FB=FC (by step 2)
Hence triangle BFH congruent to triangle CFG (R.H.S.)
Step 4: HB=GC (by step 3)
AH=AG (by step 1)
Hence AB=AH+HB=AG+GC=AC
David Hilbert
From the previous false proof, it is clear that we need new axioms to replace
the reasoning from diagrams. In 1899, a famous German mathematician,
David Hilbert (1862-1943) established a larger system of geometry, which
contains 20 axioms, in his book The Foundations of Geometry.
Hilbert introduced the so-called undefined terms. He observed that
the definition of point and line in Euclids Elements are not rigorously stated
and can only be regarded as intuitive descriptions. Also, for any axiomatic
system, whenever we need to define a term, we need some other terms that
are defined before. Therefore, a system has to start with terms that have no
definition, which are called the undefined terms. In geometry, point, line,
pass through and so on are undefined terms.
Hilberts axioms are divided into five groups:
Incidence-includes Postulate 1 in Euclids Elements and other axioms
Betweenness-deal with the conditions on whether a point is between
two given points on a line
Congruence-includes S.A.S. and other axioms
Continuity-includes axioms that guarantee the existence of
intersections of circles and lines
Parallelism-an axiom similar to Postulate 5 in Euclids Elements
Summary
Postulate 5 cannot be proved from other four postulates. In fact, we
can construct a new geometry such that Postulate 5 is false. This kind
of geometry is called non-Euclidean geometry.
Euclids proof of Proposition 4 in Book I is problematic. In modern
geometry, Proposition 4 is regarded as an axiom.

Some of Euclids proofs involve reasoning from diagrams. But

sometimes diagrams can be misleading. An example is the false proof
that all triangles are isosceles.
In 1899, David Hilbert established a larger system of geometry that
rectified the flaws in Euclids system.