Mathematical discoveries, like springtime violets in the woods, have their season which no man can hasten or retard.

Janos Bolyaior Johann Bolyai, was a Hungarian mathematician who developed absolute geometry–a geometry that includes both Euclidean geometry and hyperbolic geometry. The discovery of a consistent alternative geometry that might correspond to the structure of the universe helped to free mathematicians to study abstract concepts irrespective of any possible connection with the physical world.