Definition of "porism"

porism

noun
plural porisms
1. (geometry, number theory) A proposition affirming the possibility of finding such conditions as will render a certain determinate problem indeterminate or capable of innumerable solutions.
2. A corollary.
  Quotations
  Porism: something between a problem and a theorem or that in which something is proposed to be investigated. A Porism is a proposition in which it is proposed to demonstrate that some one thing, or more things than one, are given, to which, as also to each of innumerable other things, not given indeed, but which have the same relation to those which are given, it is to be shewn that there belongs some common affection described in the proposition.
  1845, Robert Potts, Euclid's Elements
  In the original Greek of Euclid's Elements the corollaries to the propositions are called porisms.
  1845, Robert Potts, Euclid's Elements
  The term porism is vague in meaning. The aim of a porism is not to state some property or truth, like a theorem, nor to effect a construction, like a problem, but to find and bring to view a thing which necessarily exists with given numbers or a given construction, as, to find the centre of a given circle, or to find the G.C.D. of two given numbers.
  1893, Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematics