GEOMETRY

A Timeline of the Development on

the Field of Geometry

Adriano, Arianne Jasmine M.

BME II-18
 Ancient Geometry
Practical Geometry
Ancient Egypt
5000–500 BC

1700 BC Rhind Papyrus

an 18 feet wide document containing 48 new
problems revolving mostly around dealing
with fractions.
1800 BC

Moscow Papyrus
is a document discovered containing 25 new
ideas in mathematical and geometrical
history. It includes how to find the volume of
a truncated.
 The Babylon
1830 BC - 1531 BC

The ancient Babylonians had a

sexagesimal number system with a base
sixty. It is shown that they had knowledge
1600 BC of the Pythagorean Theorem well before
Pythagoras, and they estimated Pi to
three, which would be correct if Pi was
rounded to the nearest whole number
 Ancient India

800 BC 2's Square Root

Baudhayana, author of the Baudhayana
Sulba Sutra, a Vedic Sanskrit geometric
text, contains quadratic equations, and
calculates the square root of 2 correct to
five decimal places
 Brahmagupta's
Formula
Brahmagupta dedicated a substantial portion of
628 BC his work to geometry and trigonometry. He
established √10 (3.162277) as a good practical
approximation for π (3.141593), and gave a
formula, now known as Brahmagupta’s Formula,
for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral, as well as a
celebrated theorem on the diagonals of a cyclic
quadrilateral, usually referred to as
Brahmagupta’s Theorem.
 Pythagorean Triples
The Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, the best-known and
oldest of the Sulba Sutras (dated to the 8th or 7th
century BC) contains examples of simple
Pythagorean triples, such as: (3,4,5), (5,12,13)
(8,15,17), (7,24,25), and (12,35,37),
as well as a statement of the Pythagorean theorem
600 BC for the sides of a square: "The rope which is
stretched across the diagonal of a square produces
an area double the size of the original square."
It also contains the general statement of the
Pythagorean theorem (for the sides of a
rectangle): "The rope stretched along the length of
the diagonal of a rectangle makes an area which
the vertical and horizontal sides make together."
 Greek Geometry

Thales of Miletus
Thales is credited as the first person to use
deductive math reasoning. He found the distance
624 -546 BC from a ship to the shore and measured the
height of the pyramids. His theorem states that if
AC is the diameter, then angle ABC is a right
angle.
 Pythagoras of Samos
570- 495 BC The Greek philosopher named the formula,
which calculates the hypotenuse (long edge)
length of a right-angled triangle from the lengths
of the other edges.
 Plato
Plato (427–347 BC) founded “The Academy” in 387
BC which flourished until 529 AD. He developed a
theory of Forms, in his book Phaedo, which
considers mathematical objects as perfect forms
(such as a line having length but no breadth). He
emphasized the idea of proof and insisted on
accurate definitions and clear hypotheses, paving
the way for Euclid.
427-347 BC
Mathematicians also accepted his belief that
geometry should use no tools but compass and
straightedge – never measuring instruments such as
a marked ruler or a protractor, because these were a
workman's tools, not worthy of a scholar. This
dictum led to a deep study of possible compass and
straightedge constructions, and three classic
construction problems: how to use these tools to
trisect an angle, to construct a cube twice the
volume of a given cube, and to construct a square
equal in area to a given circle.
 Euclid of Alexandria
Euclid is considered to be one of the three greatest
mathematicians of all time. He discovered Euclidean
geometry which use his axioms and theorems as they
relate to plane and solid figures.

The Elements
325-265 BC Euclid writes The Elements, a book discussing
Euclidean geometry. The Elements is a collection of 13
books of definitions, postulates, and axioms. The
Elements consist with just a few basics, 23 definitions,
5 postulates, and 5 common notions or general axioms.
An axiom is a statement that is accepted as true.
From these basics, he proved his first proposition.
Once proof was established for his first proposition, it
could then be used as part of the proof of a second
proposition, then a third, and on it went. This process
is known as the axiomatic approach. Euclid’s Elements
form the basis of the modern geometry that is still
taught in schools today.
 Archimedes of Syracus
Regarded as the greatest of Greek mathematicians, A
famous result of his is that the volume of a sphere is
two‐thirds the volume of its circumscribed cylinder,
a picture of which was inscribed on his tomb. He
gave accurate approximations to π and square roots.
In his treatise On Plane Equilibriums, he set out the
287-212 BC fundamental principles of mechanics, using the
methods of geometry, and proved many
fundamental theorems concerning the center of
gravity of plane figures.
In On Spirals, he defined and gave the fundamental
properties of a spiral connecting radius lengths with
angles as well as results about tangents and the area
of portions of the curve. He also investigated
surfaces of revolution, and discovered the 13 semi‐
regular (or Archimedean) polyhedral whose faces
are all regular polygons.
 Chinese Geometry

The Nine Chapters

on the Mathematical
100 BC Art
The Nine Chapters on The Mathematical Art
lays out an approach to mathematics that
centers on finding the most general methods
of solving problems
  
Heron of Alexandria
He wrote Metrica which gives methods for
computing areas and volumes.
Book I considers areas of plane figures and surfaces
10 -75 AD of 3D objects, and contains his now‐famous formula
for the area of a triangle = where s= (a+b+c)/2 is
the semiperimeter. Book II considers volumes of
three‐ dimensional solids.
Book III deals with dividing areas and volumes
according to a given ratio, and gives a method to find
the cube root of a number.
 Menalaus of Alexandria
Developed spherical geometry in his only surviving
work Sphaerica. In Book I, he defines spherical
triangles using arcs of great circles. This marked a
70 -130 AD turning point in the development of spherical
trigonometry.
Book II applies spherical geometry to astronomy;
and Book III deals with spherical trigonometry
including Menelaus’s theorem about how a straight
line cuts the three sidesof a triangle in proportions
whose product is -1
 Pappus of Alexandria
He was the last of the great Greek geometers. His
major work in geometry is Synagoge or The
Collection, a handbook on a wide variety of topics:
290 -350 AD arithmetic, mean proportionals, geometrical
paradoxes, regular polyhedra, the spiral and
quadratrix, trisection, honeycombs, semiregular
solids, minimal surfaces, astronomy, and mechanics.
In Book VII, he proved Pappus’ Theorem which forms
the basis of modern projective geometry; and also
proved Guldin’s Theorem (rediscovered in 1640 by
Guldin) to compute a volume of revolution.
447

The Golden Ratio

Two things are in the golden ratio if the both of the
quantities added together equal the larger quantity
compared to the smaller quantity. It was used in the
Parthenon, and it is important in the geometry of
regular pentagons and pentagrams
 Modern Geometry
Analytic Geometry
Written by Renee Descartes. In this book
he combines algebra and geometry to
make an algebraic geometry called
analytical geometry. He also reduced
1637 geometric shapes into algebraic
equations. Descartes is often credited with
creating the coordinate plane.
La Geometry mentions a theory that
points in space can be measured by
coordinate systems, and geometric
structures can be expressed by equations
—the field known is as analytical
geometry.
 Euler Line
The Euler line of a triangle is a line going
through several important triangle
centers, including the orthocenter,
circumcenter, centroid, and center of the
1765 nine point circle. The fact that such a line
exists for all non-equilateral triangles is
quite unexpected, made more impressive
by the fact that the relative distances
between the triangle centers remain
constant.
It was named after Euler, a Swiss
mathematician.

Blue lines are altitudes, orange medians, green

perpendicular bisectors, and the red line is the
Euler line
1830

Non-Euclidean Geometry
Janos Bolyai (1802–1860) and Nikolai Lobachevsky (1792-1856).are credited as the
founders of Non-Eucliden geometry. There are three types of Non-Euclidean geometries:
hyperbolic, elliptic, and spherical. All of these deal with constant curvature, and each of
them based on the first four postulates of Euclid, but each has a different parallel
postulate.
Non-Euclidian geometry generally refers to any geometry not based on the postulates of
Euclid, including geometries for which the parallel postulate is not satisfied. The parallel
postulate states that through a given point not on a line, there is one and only one line
parallel to that line. Non-Euclidian geometry provides the mathematical foundation for
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
1858

Topology
During this period, mathematicians began to be
fascinated by topology– geometric edges and
surfaces rather than specific shapes. The visualized
Möbius strip below is an object with a single surface
and a single continuous edge.
 Fractal
Geometry
Fractal geometry was
developed and popularized
by Benoit Mandelbrot in his
1982 book The Fractal
Geometry of Nature. A fractal
is a geometric shape, which is
self-similar (invariance under
1975 a change of scale) and has
fractional (fractal)
dimensions. Similar to chaos
theory, which is the study of
non-linear systems; fractals
are highly sensitive to initial
conditions where a small
change in the initial
conditions of a system can
lead to dramatically different
outputs for that system.
End of Timeline
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References
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Current Science, 85 (2): 219–224

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(ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical
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