Republic of the Philippines

POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

Course Title : MODERN GEOMETRY

MODERN GEOMETRY
Lesson 1
(Plane Euclidean Geometry Historian Introduction)

The word "geometry" comes from the Greek geometrein (geo-, "earth," and metrein, "to
measure"); geometry was originally the science of measuring land. The Greek historian Herodotus
(5th century B.C.) credits Egyptian surveyors with having originated the subject of geometry, but other
ancient civilizations (Babylonian, Hindu, Chinese) also possessed much geometric information.

The focus of geometry continues to evolve with time. The renewed emphasis on geometry
today is a response to the realization that visualization, problem-solving and deductive reasoning
must be a part of everyone’s education. Deductive reasoning has long been an integral part of
geometry, but the introduction in recent years of inexpensive dynamic geometry software programs
has added visualization and individual exploration to the study of geometry. All the constructions
underlying Euclidean plane geometry can now be made accurately and conveniently. The dynamic
nature of the construction process means that many possibilities can be considered, thereby
encouraging exploration of a given problem or the formulation of conjectures. Thus, geometry is
ideally suited to the development of visualization and problem-solving skills as well as deductive
reasoning skills. Geometry itself has not changed: technology has simply added a powerful new tool
for use while studying geometry.

Euclid propounded some basic assumptions about line segment, circle, and the congruent
right angles. These assumptions are known as Euclid’s Postulates which are 5 in number and form
one of the bases for his geometrical work of art called The Elements. The book also comprises of 23
definitions and 5 common notations.

Euclid’s Postulates
1. Two points determine a line segment
2. A line segment can be extended indefinitely along a line.
3. A circle can be drawn with a center and any radius.
4. All right angles are congruent.
 5. If two lines are cut by a transversal, and the interior angles on the same side of the transversal
have a total measure of less than 180 degrees, then the lines will intersect on known
nowadays, as simply stating:

“Through a point not on a line, there is no more than one line parallel to the line.”

The last postulate is not as obvious as the other four, and Euclid himself was reluctant to use
it. Later mathematicians, finding the fifth postulate to be complicated, thought it might be possible to
derive it from the other four. However, they only succeeded in replacing it with equivalent statements.

It is natural to ask why Euclid singled out his five postulates for explicit mention. After Euclid,
mathematician attempted to make explicit the assumptions that Euclid had neglected to mention. The
fifth postulate attracted much attention. It was cumbersome but intuitively appealing, and people felt
that it might be deduced from the other assumptions of Euclid. Many “proofs” of the fifth postulate
were proposed, but they usually contained a hidden assumption equivalent to what was to be proved.
Three such equivalent conditions were:

1. Two intersecting straight lines cannot be parallel to the same straight line. (Playfair)
2. Parallel lines remain at a constant distance from each other. (Proclus)
3. The interior angles of a triangle add up to two right angles. (Legendre)

Three Approaches to the study of Geometry

1. The Axiomatic Approach – We start with some undefined objects, relations, and an axiom
system. Then we deduce the logical consequences. We shall make some use this approach.
However, we need some motivation in order to know which axioms to choose and hot to
interpret our results. Without this, the study will not be very interesting.

2. The Analytical Approach – A point is represented by an ordered pair, triple, and so forth, of
real numbers (or, more generally, elements of some other algebraic structure). Points are
defined to be collinear if they satisfy an equation of a certain type. Then every algebraic
equation that one can derive will have some geometrical interpretation. In this approach, linear
algebra and matrices are used to facilitate computation.

3. The Empirical Approach – Our goal is to discover geometrical facts about the world we live
in. We use only those facts that we can observe and their logical consequences. Thus, one
can conceive of trying to discover whether the parallel postulate is true or false in the world of
physical space. Gauss, in fact, tried to do this by locating mirrors on the three distant mountain
peaks and measuring the sum of the angles of the large triangle formed by the light rays send
from one peak to another. His results were inconclusive because the limits of experimental
error were larger than the deviation of his measurement from 𝝅.