One must do no violence to nature, nor model it in conformity to any blindly formed chimera.

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.