Moritz Pasch

Moritz Pasch (8 November 1843, Breslau, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland) – 20 September 1930, Bad Homburg, Germany) was a German mathematician of Jewish ancestry[1] specializing in the foundations of geometry.

He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Breslau at only 22 years of age.

In 1882, Pasch published a book, Vorlesungen über neuere Geometrie, calling for the grounding of Euclidean geometry in more precise primitive notions and axioms, and for greater care in the deductive methods employed to develop the subject.

He drew attention to a number of heretofore unnoted tacit assumptions in Euclid's Elements.

He then argued that mathematical reasoning should not invoke the physical interpretation of the primitive terms, but should instead rely solely on formal manipulations justified by axioms.