History
Main article: History of geometry
A European and an Arab practicing geometry in the 15th century
The earliest recorded beginnings of geometry can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt in the 2nd
millennium BC.[9][10] Early geometry was a collection of empirically discovered principles concerning
lengths, angles, areas, and volumes, which were developed to meet some practical need
in surveying, construction, astronomy, and various crafts. The earliest known texts on geometry are
the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus (2000–1800 BC) and Moscow Papyrus (c. 1890 BC), the Babylonian clay
tablets such as Plimpton 322 (1900 BC). For example, the Moscow Papyrus gives a formula for calculating
the volume of a truncated pyramid, or frustum.[11] Later clay tablets (350–50 BC) demonstrate that
Babylonian astronomers implemented trapezoid procedures for computing Jupiter's position
and motion within time-velocity space. These geometric procedures anticipated the Oxford Calculators,
including the mean speed theorem, by 14 centuries.[12] South of Egypt the ancient Nubians established a
system of geometry including early versions of sun clocks.[13][14]
In the 7th century BC, the Greek mathematician Thales of Miletus used geometry to solve problems such
as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is credited with the first
use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem.
[2] Pythagoras established the Pythagorean School, which is credited with the first proof of the Pythagorean
theorem,[15] though the statement of the theorem has a long history.[16][17] Eudoxus (408–c. 355 BC)
developed the method of exhaustion, which allowed the calculation of areas and volumes of curvilinear
figures,[18] as well as a theory of ratios that avoided the problem of incommensurable magnitudes, which
enabled subsequent geometers to make significant advances. Around 300 BC, geometry was
revolutionized by Euclid, whose Elements, widely considered the most successful and influential textbook
of all time,[19] introduced mathematical rigor through the axiomatic method and is the earliest example of
the format still used in mathematics today, that of definition, axiom, theorem, and proof. Although most of
the contents of the Elements were already known, Euclid arranged them into a single, coherent logical
framework.[20] The Elements was known to all educated people in the West until the middle of the 20th
century and its contents are still taught in geometry classes today.[21] Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC)
of Syracuse used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with
the summation of an infinite series, and gave remarkably accurate approximations of Pi.[22] He also studied
the spiral bearing his name and obtained formulas for the volumes of surfaces of revolution.
Woman teaching geometry. Illustration at the beginning of a medieval translation of Euclid's Elements, (c. 1310).
Indian mathematicians also made many important contributions in geometry. The Satapatha
Brahmana (3rd century BC) contains rules for ritual geometric constructions that are similar to the Sulba
Sutras.[4] According to (Hayashi 2005, p. 363), the Śulba Sūtras contain "the earliest extant verbal
expression of the Pythagorean Theorem in the world, although it had already been known to the Old
Babylonians. They contain lists of Pythagorean triples,[23] which are particular cases of Diophantine
equations.[24] In the Bakhshali manuscript, there is a handful of geometric problems (including problems
about volumes of irregular solids). The Bakhshali manuscript also "employs a decimal place value system
with a dot for zero."[25] Aryabhata's Aryabhatiya (499) includes the computation of areas and
volumes. Brahmagupta wrote his astronomical work Brāhma Sphuṭa Siddhānta in 628. Chapter 12,
containing 66 Sanskrit verses, was divided into two sections: "basic operations" (including cube roots,
fractions, ratio and proportion, and barter) and "practical mathematics" (including mixture, mathematical
series, plane figures, stacking bricks, sawing of timber, and piling of grain).[26] In the latter section, he
stated his famous theorem on the diagonals of a cyclic quadrilateral. Chapter 12 also included a formula for
the area of a cyclic quadrilateral (a generalization of Heron's formula), as well as a complete description
of rational triangles (i.e. triangles with rational sides and rational areas).[26]
In the Middle Ages, mathematics in medieval Islam contributed to the development of geometry,
especially algebraic geometry.[27][28] Al-Mahani (b. 853) conceived the idea of reducing geometrical
problems such as duplicating the cube to problems in algebra.[29] Thābit ibn Qurra (known as Thebit
in Latin) (836–901) dealt with arithmetic operations applied to ratios of geometrical quantities, and
contributed to the development of analytic geometry.[5] Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) found geometric
solutions to cubic equations.[30] The theorems of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Omar Khayyam and Nasir al-
Din al-Tusi on quadrilaterals, including the Lambert quadrilateral and Saccheri quadrilateral, were early
results in hyperbolic geometry, and along with their alternative postulates, such as Playfair's axiom, these
works had a considerable influence on the development of non-Euclidean geometry among later European
geometers, including Witelo (c. 1230–c. 1314), Gersonides (1288–1344), Alfonso, John Wallis,
and Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri.[31]
In the early 17th century, there were two important developments in geometry. The first was the creation of
analytic geometry, or geometry with coordinates and equations, by René Descartes (1596–1650)
and Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665).[32] This was a necessary precursor to the development of calculus and
a precise quantitative science of physics.[33] The second geometric development of this period was the
systematic study of projective geometry by Girard Desargues (1591–1661).[34] Projective geometry studies
properties of shapes which are unchanged under projections and sections, especially as they relate
to artistic perspective.[35]
Two developments in geometry in the 19th century changed the way it had been studied previously.
[36] These were the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries by Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, János Bolyai
and Carl Friedrich Gauss and of the formulation of symmetry as the central consideration in the Erlangen
Programme of Felix Klein (which generalized the Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries). Two of the
master geometers of the time were Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866), working primarily with tools
from mathematical analysis, and introducing the Riemann surface, and Henri Poincaré, the founder
of algebraic topology and the geometric theory of dynamical systems. As a consequence of these major
changes in the conception of geometry, the concept of "space" became something rich and varied, and the
natural background for theories as different as complex analysis and classical mechanics.[37]
