Questions tagged [geometry]

For questions about geometric shapes, congruences, similarities, transformations, as well as the properties of classes of figures, points, lines, and angles.

Geometry is one of the classical disciplines of math. It is derived from two Latin words, "geo" + "metron" meaning earth & measurement. Thus it is concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, solids, and higher dimensional analogs. Since its earliest days, geometry has served as a practical guide for measuring lengths, areas, and volumes, and geometry is still used for this purpose today. Geometry is important because the world is made up of different shapes and spaces.

Geometry has applications to many fields, including art, architecture, physics, as well as to other branches of mathematics.

Sub-fields of Contemporary Geometry:

$1.\quad$ Algebraic Geometry – is a branch of geometry studying zeroes of multivariate polynomials. It includes the linear and polynomial algebraic equations used for finding these sets of zeros. The applications of algebraic geometry include cryptography, string theory, etc.

$2.\quad$ Discrete Geometry – is concerned with the relative positions of simple geometric objects, such as points, lines, triangles, circles etc.

$3.\quad$ Differential Geometry – uses techniques of algebra and calculus for problem-solving. The applications of differential geometry include general relativity in physics, etc.

$4.\quad$ Euclidean Geometry – The study of plane and solid figures on the basis of axioms and theorems including points, lines, planes, angles, congruence, similarity, solid figures. It has a wide range of applications in computer science, modern mathematics problem solving, crystallography etc.

$5.\quad$ Convex Geometry – includes convex shapes in Euclidean space using techniques of real analysis. It has application in optimization and functional analysis in number theory.

$6.\quad$ Topology – is concerned with properties of space under continuous mapping. Its application includes consideration of compactness, completeness, continuity, filters, function spaces, grills, clusters and bunches, hyperspace topologies, initial and final structures, metric spaces, metrization, nets, proximal continuity, proximity spaces, separation axioms, and uniform spaces.

$7.\quad$ Plane Geometry – This wing of geometry deals with flat shapes which can be drawn on a piece of paper. These include lines, circles & triangles of two dimensions.

$8.\quad$ Solid Geometry – It deals with $3$-dimensional objects like cubes, prisms, cylinders & spheres.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry

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Can someone explain the math behind tessellation?

Tessellation is fascinating to me, and I've always been amazed by the drawings of M.C.Escher, particularly interesting to me, is how he would've gone about calculating tessellating shapes. In my spare time, I'm playing a lot with a series of…
ocodo
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Studying Euclidean geometry using hyperbolic criteria

You've spent your whole life in the hyperbolic plane. It's second nature to you that the area of a triangle depends only on its angles, and it seems absurd to suggest that it could ever be otherwise. But recently a good friend named Euclid has…
Zach Conn
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Is the blue area greater than the red area?

Problem: A vertex of one square is pegged to the centre of an identical square, and the overlapping area is blue. One of the squares is then rotated about the vertex and the resulting overlap is red. Which area is greater? Let the area of each…
Mr Pie
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What is the probability that a point chosen randomly from inside an equilateral triangle is closer to the center than to any of the edges?

My friend gave me this puzzle: What is the probability that a point chosen at random from the interior of an equilateral triangle is closer to the center than any of its edges? I tried to draw the picture and I drew a smaller (concentric)…
terrace
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How can I find the surface area of a normal chicken egg?

This morning, I had eggs for breakfast, and I was looking at the pieces of broken shells and thought "What is the surface area of this egg?" The problem is that I have no real idea about how to find the surface area. I have learned formulas for…
yiyi
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Probability that a stick randomly broken in five places can form a tetrahedron

Edit (June. 2015) This question has been moved to MathOverflow, where a recent write-up finds a similar approximation as leonbloy's post below; see here. Randomly break a stick in five places. Question: What is the probability that the resulting…
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Why is the derivative of a circle's area its perimeter (and similarly for spheres)?

When differentiated with respect to $r$, the derivative of $\pi r^2$ is $2 \pi r$, which is the circumference of a circle. Similarly, when the formula for a sphere's volume $\frac{4}{3} \pi r^3$ is differentiated with respect to $r$, we get $4 \pi…
bryn
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What is the smallest number of $45^\circ-60^\circ-75^\circ$ triangles that a square can be divided into?

What is the smallest number of $45^\circ-60^\circ-75^\circ$ triangles that a square can be divided into? The image below is a flawed example, from http://www.mathpuzzle.com/flawed456075.gif Laczkovich gave a solution with many hundreds of…
Ed Pegg
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Fastest way to meet, without communication, on a sphere?

I was puzzled by a question my colleague asked me, and now seeking your help. Suppose you and your friend* end up on a big sphere. There are no visual cues on where on the sphere you both are, and the sphere is way bigger than you two. There are no…
Rob Audenaerde
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What does the dot product of two vectors represent?

I know how to calculate the dot product of two vectors alright. However, it is not clear to me what, exactly, does the dot product represent. The product of two numbers, $2$ and $3$, we say that it is $2$ added to itself $3$ times or something like…
Zol Tun Kul
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Why is the volume of a sphere $\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3$?

I learned that the volume of a sphere is $\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3$, but why? The $\pi$ kind of makes sense because its round like a circle, and the $r^3$ because it's 3-D, but $\frac{4}{3}$ is so random! How could somebody guess something like this for…
Larry Wang
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Why is the volume of a cone one third of the volume of a cylinder?

The volume of a cone with height $h$ and radius $r$ is $\frac{1}{3} \pi r^2 h$, which is exactly one third the volume of the smallest cylinder that it fits inside. This can be proved easily by considering a cone as a solid of revolution, but I would…
bryn
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Prove the theorem on analytic geometry in the picture.

I discovered this elegant theorem in my facebook feed. Does anyone have any idea how to prove? Formulations of this theorem can be found in the answers and the comments. You are welcome to join in the discussion. Edit: Current progress: The theorem…
user122049
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Mathematicians' Tensors vs. Physicists' Tensors

It seems, at times, that physicists and mathematicians mean different things when they say the word "tensor." From my perspective, when I say tensor, I mean "an element of a tensor product of vector spaces." For instance, here is a segment about…
msm
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What is the most elegant proof of the Pythagorean theorem?

The Pythagorean Theorem is one of the most popular to prove by mathematicians, and there are many proofs available (including one from James Garfield). What's the most elegant proof? My favorite is this graphical one: According to…