Geometry (from Ancient Greek γεωμετρία (geōmetría) 'land measurement';

from γῆ (gê) 'earth, land' and μέτρον (métron) 'a measure')[1] is a branch
of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance,
shape, size, and relative position of figures. [2] Geometry is, along
with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician
who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th
century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry,
[a]
which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface,
and curve, as fundamental concepts.[3]

Originally developed to model the physical world, geometry has applications

in almost all sciences, and also in art, architecture, and other activities that
are related to graphics.[4] Geometry also has applications in areas of
mathematics that are apparently unrelated. For example, methods of
algebraic geometry are fundamental in Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last
Theorem, a problem that was stated in terms of elementary arithmetic, and
remained unsolved for several centuries.

During the 19th century several discoveries enlarged dramatically the scope
of geometry. One of the oldest such discoveries is Carl Friedrich
Gauss's Theorema Egregium ("remarkable theorem") that asserts roughly
that the Gaussian curvature of a surface is independent from any
specific embedding in a Euclidean space. This implies that surfaces can be
studied intrinsically, that is, as stand-alone spaces, and has been expanded
into the theory of manifolds and Riemannian geometry. Later in the 19th
century, it appeared that geometries without the parallel postulate (non-
Euclidean geometries) can be developed without introducing any
contradiction. The geometry that underlies general relativity is a famous
application of non-Euclidean geometry.

Since the late 19th century, the scope of geometry has been greatly
expanded, and the field has been split in many subfields that depend on the
underlying methods—differential geometry, algebraic
geometry, computational geometry, algebraic topology, discrete
geometry (also known as combinatorial geometry), etc.—or on the properties
of Euclidean spaces that are disregarded—projective geometry that consider
only alignment of points but not distance and parallelism, affine
geometry that omits the concept of angle and distance, finite geometry that
omits continuity, and others. This enlargement of the scope of geometry led
to a change of meaning of the word "space", which originally referred to the
three-dimensional space of the physical world and its model provided by
Euclidean geometry; presently a geometric space, or simply a space is
a mathematical structure on which some geometry is defined.

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.[5][6] 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), and 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.
[7]
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.[8] South of Egypt the ancient Nubians established a system of
geometry including early versions of sun clocks. [9][10]

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's theorem.[11] Pythagoras established the Pythagorean School,
which is credited with the first proof of the Pythagorean theorem,[12] though
the statement of the theorem has a long history. [13][14] Eudoxus (408–c. 355
BC) developed the method of exhaustion, which allowed the calculation of
areas and volumes of curvilinear figures,[15] 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,
[16]
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.[17] 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.[18] Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC)
of Syracuse, Italy 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.[19] 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 Shatapatha Brahmana (3rd century BC) contains rules for ritual
geometric constructions that are similar to the Sulba Sutras.[20] 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,
[b]
which are particular cases of Diophantine equations.[21] In the Bakhshali
manuscript, there are 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."[22] Aryabhata's Aryabhatiya (499) includes the computation of areas
and volumes. Brahmagupta wrote his astronomical
work Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta 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). [23] 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).[23]

In the Middle Ages, mathematics in medieval Islam contributed to the

development of geometry, especially algebraic geometry.[24][25] Al-Mahani (b.
853) conceived the idea of reducing geometrical problems such as
duplicating the cube to problems in algebra. [26] 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.[27] Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) found geometric
solutions to cubic equations.[28] 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 part of a line of
research on the parallel postulate continued by later European geometers,
including Vitello (c. 1230 – c. 1314), Gersonides (1288–1344), Alfonso, John
Wallis, and Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri, that by the 19th century led to the
discovery of hyperbolic geometry.[29]

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).[30] This was a necessary precursor to the
development of calculus and a precise quantitative science of physics.[31] The
second geometric development of this period was the systematic study
of projective geometry by Girard Desargues (1591–1661).[32] Projective
geometry studies properties of shapes which are unchanged
under projections and sections, especially as they relate to artistic
perspective.[33]
Two developments in geometry in the 19th century changed the way it had
been studied previously.[34] 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.[35]