Hilbert's Third Problem - Original Question

Original Question

Hilbert's original question was more complicated: given any two tetrahedra T1 and T2 with equal base area and equal height (and therefore equal volume), is it always possible to find a finite number of tetrahedra, so that when these tetrahedra are glued in some way to T1 and also glued to T2, the resulting polyhedra are scissors-congruent?

Dehn's invariant can be used to yield a negative answer also to this stronger question.

Read more about this topic:  Hilbert's Third Problem

Famous quotes containing the words original and/or question:

    Thir dread commander: he above the rest
    In shape and gesture proudly eminent
    Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost
    All her Original brightness, nor appear’d
    Less than Arch Angel ruind, and th’ excess
    Of Glory obscur’d: As when the Sun new ris’n
    Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
    Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
    In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
    On half the Nations, and with fear of change
    Perplexes Monarchs.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    What use soever be made of truth, yet truth is truth, and now the question is not, what is fit to be preached, but what is true.
    Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)