Front cover image for Geometry civilized : history, culture, and technique

Geometry civilized : history, culture, and technique

"This lavishly illustrated book provides an unusually accessible approach to geometry by placing it in historical context. With concise discussions and carefully chosen illustrations the author brings the material to life by showing what problems motivated early geometers throughout the world. Geometry Civilized covers classical plane geometry, emphasizing the methods of Euclid but also drawing on advances made in China and India. It includes a wide range of problems, solutions, and illustrations, as well as a chapter on trigonometry, and prepares its readers for the study of solid geometry and conic sections."--Publisher
Print Book, English, 2000
Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2000
History
viii, 309 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
9780198500780, 9780198506904, 0198500785, 0198506902
47170461
An old story
1(48)
Euclid and his modern rivals
4(19)
Geometry in and as culture
23(18)
No royal road
41(8)
From points to proof
49(35)
Necessary ingredients
49(14)
The size of the earth
63(8)
The point of proof
71(11)
Exercises
82(2)
Tricks with triangles
84(59)
The bridge of asses
84(6)
Practice
90(18)
Similarity
108(22)
Deception
130(4)
Exercises
134(9)
Many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse
143(46)
The theorem of Pythagoras
143(11)
The Chinese Pythagoras
154(4)
More trigonometry
158(16)
Exercises
174(15)
From polygons to pi
189(80)
Some interesting circles
189(13)
Touching, again
202(18)
Regular polygons
220(21)
Not so easy as pie
241(11)
Exercises
252(17)
Tough knots
269(28)
Hero's formula for the area of a triangle
269(2)
Huygens' improved method of computing π
271(7)
Radian measure
278(4)
The burning mirror
282(5)
Gothic lights
287(5)
The Tantalus problem
292(5)
Bibliography297(8)
Index305
"Reprinted new as paperback (with corrections) 2000"--Title page verso