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Geometry

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Geometry (from Wikipedia)

Geometry (from the Greek words Geo = earth and metro = measure) is the branch of mathematics first popularized in ancient Greek culture by Thales (circa 624-547 BC) dealing with spatial relationships. The earliest beginnings of geometry may be traced to Ancient Egypt. The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus describes an astoundingly precise means of obtaining an approximation of Pi, accurate to within less than one per cent. The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus also describes one of the earliest attempts at squaring the circle as well as a kind of an analogue of the cotangent.

Because of its immediate practical applications, geometry was one of the first branches of mathematics to be developed. Likewise, it was the first field to be put on an axiomatic basis, by Euclid. The Greeks were interested in many questions about ruler-and-compass constructions. The next most significant development had to wait until a millennium later, and that was analytic geometry, in which coordinate systems are introduced and points are represented as ordered pairs or triples of numbers. This sort of representation has since then allowed us to construct new geometries other than the standard Euclidean version.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry

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