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What is geometry?
Geometry is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of shapes. Elementary geometry has two main branches, one for shapes drawn on a flat surface (like a piece of paper) and another, called solid geometry, that deals with cubes, balls and other 3-dimensional shapes.
How is geometry used in the real world?
Geometry is used to figure out surface area and volume. It is especially useful when it's difficult to actually measure something directly. For instance, geometry can tell you how high a mountain is without having to climb it, how far away a star or planet is when you can't travel there, or how big the earth is without going all the way around with a measuring tape.
One of the newest uses is in computer games. When you play a computer game that seems realistic, it is geometry that the computer uses to display the moving characters and backgrounds on the screen. Your computer calculates the proper view and all the angles to fool your eye and brain into thinking you are seeing a real, 3-dimensional world.
A basic problem in geometry.
Suppose you want to figure out how much paint to buy to repaint your room. First, you would see how much area each gallon of paint covers. Then, you would use geometry to find out the surface area of the walls in your room.
Adding the surface area for each wall (and subtracting the surface area of any windows and doors which aren't painted) will give you the total area you need to paint. Finally, you buy enough paint to cover the area you calculated.
This is the same procedure used to figure out how many shingles will be needed to cover a roof, or how much carpet to cover a floor. Your house (and any building) is full of problems that were solved by geometry.
Who invented geometry?
Geometry is a very old branch of mathematics. At first, it was used in a practical way - to measure land and for navigating on the sea. The Egyptians, as early as 3000 BC, were using geometry to build their pyramids and to redraw property boundaries after the Nile river flooded (which tended to erase any landmarks).
At around 300 BC, Euclid (a famous Greek mathematician) wrote out the principles of geometry in a mathematical form. He is credited as the father of geometry because he combined numbers and mathematical formulas with the practical rules that had already been used.
An interesting fact about geometry:
As early as 200 BC, geometry was used to calculate the size of the earth. Eratosthenes was a scholar at the Library at Alexandria who realized if you measured the angle of the sun (at noon) from two widely separated places on earth, you could make an imaginary triangle.
The triangle would have two points on the earth with the third point being the sun itself. Although his measurements of the angles and the distances between the two places on the earth was off, it is amazing that such a calculation could even be attempted so long ago.
Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth - 2,200 years before Columbus relied on a round earth to make his famous voyage.
High School Level Geometry