From Euclid and Dido to Plateau and Alexandrov

Euclidean geometry served for 2000 years as a school of logical thought, as a model of a scientific theory and as the only true model of our world. At the latest Einstein relativized the sole claim of Euclidean geometry by predicting the existence of curvature in the universe. Curvature, since Gauss a central concept of geometry, describes the deviation from the Euclidean "non-curved" space.

In the lecture I will explain different approaches to the concept of curvature and describe a connection with the isoperimetric problem, which the Phoenician princess Dido was the first to solve.