THE PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE THEOREM - INTRODUCING THE AXIOM OF CHOICE

PEANO, GIUSEPPE.

Démonstration de l'intégrabilité des équations différentielles ordinaires.

Leipzig, B.G. Teubner, 1890. Orig. printed wrappers, no backstrip. A small offsetting to upper left corner of frontwrapper. A small tear to endwrapper repaired. In "Mathematische Annalen. Gegenwärtig hrsg. von Felix Klein, Walter Dyck, Adolph Mayer, 36. Band, 2. Heft." Pp. (153-)320. The whole issue (Heft 2) with orig.wrappers. Peano's paper: pp. 182-288.

First edition and the first appearance of this fundamental paper in which Peano gives the proof of the so-called "Peano-Existence-Theorem" and at the same time contains the first explicit statement of "The axiom of choice".
The Peano-Existence-Theorem, or "Cauchy-Peano-Theorem" guarantees the existence of solutions to certain initial value problems. He first published the theorem in 1886 in "Sull'integrabilita della equazioni differenziali del primo ordine" in Atti Accad. Sci. Torino, 21, with an incorrect proof. The new correct proof appeared in this paper, as offered.
"Peano's work in analysis began in 1883 with an article on the integrability of functions. The article of 1890 (the paper offered) contains notions of integrals and areas. Peano wasthe first to show that the first-order differential equation y' = f(x,y) is solvable on the sole assumption that f is continuous. His first proof dates from 1886, but its rigor leaves something to be desired. In 1890 this result was generalized to systems of differential equations using a different method of proof. This work is also notable for containing the first explicit statement of the axiom of choice. Peano rejected the axiom of choice as being outside the ordinary logic used in mathematical proofs." (Hubert T Kennedy in DSB).

Order-nr.: 41242