Hobbies And Interests
What It Is
Geometry is a branch of mathematics that deals with physical space and, more specifically, characteristics of physical space such as size, area, volume and shape, and their relationships to one another. You can study geometry in two dimensions -- plane geometry -- or three dimensions -- solid geometry. There are many different kinds of geometry, such as analytic geometry, algebraic geometry, differential geometry and projective geometry. These various fields of geometry can, however, be lumped together into two main fields: Euclidean geometry and non-Euclidean geometry, which refer to the third-century-B.C. Egyptian geometer Euclid.
History
The exact origins of geometry seem to go back farther than recorded history, or, at least geometry is present in some of the earliest recorded histories of Egypt and Babylon, so it may be presumed that geometry must have originated in a place and time before those recorded histories. Later, the Greeks contributed to the study of geometry, as did many Islamic scholars, but it was not until later centuries and thinkers such as Rene Descartes that the understanding of geometry became more refined. Geometry as a field of study continues to evolve.
Applications
It is very likely that geometry started out not as a branch of mathematics but as a set of practical formulas for solving common problems. This cannot be known for sure, but evidence from Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations points to geometry's being used for such purposes as area and volume measurements for taxation and other governmental concerns, as well as large-scale architectural works. Even today, many school children learn geometry not as abstract math but as a set of rules for solving practical problems, such as finding the area of a given shape or space to determine construction parameters or determine property values or insurance costs.
Modern Advances
Modern mathematicians have found many new and interesting applications of geometry. The field of physics, in particular, makes use of geometrical ideas in a number of ways. One of the central tenets of string theory, for example, is the existence of many more dimensions than the three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension, time. Remember that geometry is the study of space, and that if there are many more spatial dimensions than the standard three, geometry is likely to have something to say about it.