Introduction to Geometry

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Lets do start from the basic introduction.

In the time of Indian Subcontinent (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro)

In the Indian subcontinent, the diggings at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, etc. reveal that
the Indus Valley Civilization ( 3000 BC) used to apply geometry extensively. As a highly
organized culture, the houses had many rooms of several kinds, the cities were highly
developed, very well-planned and the roads were parallel to each other. They setup an
underground drainage system. This shows that the town dwellers were skilled in
mensuration and practical arithmetic. The bricks used for constructions were kiln
fired, moreover the ratio length: breadth: thickness, of the bricks was found to be 4 :
2 : 1.

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In the time of Egyptians

Lets now step in the Egyptians era (well study this era in a separate section),
whenever the river Nile flooded, it wiped out the boundaries between the adjoining fields
of several land owners. After such overflowing, these boundaries had to be re-drawn.
For this purpose, the Egyptians established a number of geometric procedures and
rules for calculating simple areas and also for doing simple constructions. These
geometric rules were also used by them for computing volumes of granaries, and for
building pyramids and canals. They were well familiar with formula that helps in finding
the volume of a truncated pyramid (Figure Below).

Infact, geometry was studied in various forms in every ancient society, e.g. in India,
Egypt, China, Greece, the Incas and Babylonia, etc. (well study these eras in
respective dedicated sections). The people of these societies faced different practical
problems which needed the advancement of geometry in different ways.

An old children's joke

"What does an acorn say when it grows up?" and answer's, "Geometry".
From the study of above examples (and few more in History Section), we're now
inclined to verdict that at the beginning of civilization, people discovered two
mathematical ideas namely: space and multiplicity. Later involved counting (of
animals, days, etc.), and the former dealt with areas and volumes (of water, land, crop
productions, etc). These grew into two major divisions of mathematics: Geometry and
arithmetic.

Meanings of The Name

The word geometry comes to us from ancient Greek words: geos _ Land or
Earth and metron _ Measurement, literally Geometry means Land
Measurement. Geometry seems to have originated from the need for measuring land.
Here's the Greek translation of the word "Geometry":

It seems that the subject of geometry initiates from the kind of problems that worried the
civilizations since ancient times And in the start it was all about taking a modern
equivalent of a measuring tape and finding out. All measuring tools are finely unlike,
though, while all scientists have the same unstoppable tendency to abstractify the
problems they anticipate. By the Hellenistic time; geometry had well developed itself like
a science about the principles of land measuring. It studies the properties (size, shape,
etc.) of the common notions such as points, lines and other idealized versions of real
world objects and the characteristics of their positions with respect to each other (angle,
distance, etc.).

Subject Matter
Remember, every object which occurs in nature has numerous properties; to facilitate
the investigation of which, one preliminarily endeavors to consider one at a time,
independently of the others; the different investigations of the same kind are then
collected, and thus the different sciences, natural sciences, are formed. Thus, if we

examine a piece of chalk, we might ask about its origin and occurrence, its
specific gravity and colour, the combination of its elements, its form etc. and these
questions will be answered respectively by Geology, Physics, Chemistry, and Geometry
and is one of the most ancient of all sciences and arts.

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Geometry treats of the form without regard to the substance; when we speak of a
sphere, we do not consider of what it is made, but only of the space which it occupies;
every object occupies a space, which has extension in all directions; this is a
geometrical body. In the history and origin section of geometry, we shall see several
interesting examples happening in the past that caused the birth of geometry.

Motivation
Geometry is used to shape the world around us. If you see the roofs of houses, youll
observe rectangles, triangles, trapezia etc. On the other hand problems like tiling
patterns in bathrooms, floors and pavements use shapes of squares, hexagons,
triangles and pentagons. Professionals like architects, tilers, builders, designers and
graphic designers use geometric ideas in their routine work

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Ordering such geometric things and investigating their properties are very essential.
When it comes to art, again, geometric concepts step in. Just as arithmetic, being the
science of numbers, uses numbers as its basic objects of study, similarly the notions of
points, lines and planes are the elementary building blocks of the plane geometry.

Geometry as a stimulator for intuitive ideas

In secondary school geometry, we study different geometric terms (points, lines and
angles) which are not at all easy to precisely define, followed by some definitions
(parallel lines, and vertically opposite angles, etc.) and from these we deduce significant
facts, which are often referred to as propositions or theorems. During studies, these
geometric concepts stimulate intuitive ideas for the advancement of the industry, youre
working in.

A legendary story
Menaechmus (ca. 380 320 B.C.), a student of Eudoxus, discovered the conic sections.
There is a fabulous story told about Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) who is said to
have asked his tutor, Menaechmus, to teach him geometry concisely, to which the latter
replied,
O king, through the country there are royal roads and roads for common citizens, but in
geometry there is one road for all.

Conclusion
In a nutshell, geometry offers a chance for students to develop their geometric intuition,
which has uses almost in every realm of life, and also to understand how to build logical
arguments and make deductions in a setting which is, for the most part, free of
numbers.