GeometryGeometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.
Cyclic quadrilateralIn Euclidean geometry, a cyclic quadrilateral or inscribed quadrilateral is a quadrilateral whose vertices all lie on a single circle. This circle is called the circumcircle or circumscribed circle, and the vertices are said to be concyclic. The center of the circle and its radius are called the circumcenter and the circumradius respectively. Other names for these quadrilaterals are concyclic quadrilateral and chordal quadrilateral, the latter since the sides of the quadrilateral are chords of the circumcircle.
Law of cosinesIn trigonometry, the law of cosines (also known as the cosine formula or cosine rule) relates the lengths of the sides of a triangle to the cosine of one of its angles. For a triangle with sides and opposite respective angles and (see Fig. 1), the law of cosines states: The law of cosines generalizes the Pythagorean theorem, which holds only for right triangles: if is a right angle then and the law of cosines reduces to The law of cosines is useful for solving a triangle when all three sides or two sides and their included angle are given.
CircumcircleIn geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a triangle is a circle that passes through all three vertices. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter of the triangle, and its radius is called the circumradius. The circumcenter is the point of intersection between the three perpendicular bisectors of the triangle's sides, and is a triangle center. More generally, an n-sided polygon with all its vertices on the same circle, also called the circumscribed circle, is called a cyclic polygon, or in the special case n = 4, a cyclic quadrilateral.
Pythagorean theoremIn mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem or Pythagoras' theorem is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry between the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides. The theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and the hypotenuse c, sometimes called the Pythagorean equation: The theorem is named for the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, born around 570 BC.
SemiperimeterIn geometry, the semiperimeter of a polygon is half its perimeter. Although it has such a simple derivation from the perimeter, the semiperimeter appears frequently enough in formulas for triangles and other figures that it is given a separate name. When the semiperimeter occurs as part of a formula, it is typically denoted by the letter s.
TrigonometryTrigonometry () is a branch of mathematics concerned with relationships between angles and ratios of lengths. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. The Greeks focused on the calculation of chords, while mathematicians in India created the earliest-known tables of values for trigonometric ratios (also called trigonometric functions) such as sine. Throughout history, trigonometry has been applied in areas such as geodesy, surveying, celestial mechanics, and navigation.
Law of sinesIn trigonometry, the law of sines, sine law, sine formula, or sine rule is an equation relating the lengths of the sides of any triangle to the sines of its angles. According to the law, where a, b, and c are the lengths of the sides of a triangle, and α, β, and γ are the opposite angles (see figure 2), while R is the radius of the triangle's circumcircle. When the last part of the equation is not used, the law is sometimes stated using the reciprocals; The law of sines can be used to compute the remaining sides of a triangle when two angles and a side are known—a technique known as triangulation.
IncenterIn geometry, the incenter of a triangle is a triangle center, a point defined for any triangle in a way that is independent of the triangle's placement or scale. The incenter may be equivalently defined as the point where the internal angle bisectors of the triangle cross, as the point equidistant from the triangle's sides, as the junction point of the medial axis and innermost point of the grassfire transform of the triangle, and as the center point of the inscribed circle of the triangle.
Bretschneider's formulaIn geometry, Bretschneider's formula is a mathematical expression for the area of a general quadrilateral. It works on both convex and concave quadrilaterals (but not crossed ones), whether it is cyclic or not. The German mathematician Carl Anton Bretschneider discovered the formula in 1842. The formula was also derived in the same year by the German mathematician Karl Georg Christian von Staudt. Bretschneider's formula is expressed as: Here, a, b, c, d are the sides of the quadrilateral, s is the semiperimeter, and α and γ are any two opposite angles, since as long as Denote the area of the quadrilateral by K.
TrapezoidIn geometry, a trapezoid (ˈtɹæpəzɔɪd) in USA and Canadian English, or trapezium (trəˈpiːziəm) in British and other forms of English, is a quadrilateral that has at least one pair of parallel sides. The parallel sides are called the bases of the trapezoid. The other two sides are called the legs (or the lateral sides) if they are not parallel; otherwise, the trapezoid is a parallelogram, and there are two pairs of bases. A scalene trapezoid is a trapezoid with no sides of equal measure, in contrast with the special cases below.
CollinearityIn geometry, collinearity of a set of points is the property of their lying on a single line. A set of points with this property is said to be collinear (sometimes spelled as colinear). In greater generality, the term has been used for aligned objects, that is, things being "in a line" or "in a row". In any geometry, the set of points on a line are said to be collinear. In Euclidean geometry this relation is intuitively visualized by points lying in a row on a "straight line".
Isosceles triangleIn geometry, an isosceles triangle (aɪˈsɒsəliːz) is a triangle that has two sides of equal length. Sometimes it is specified as having exactly two sides of equal length, and sometimes as having at least two sides of equal length, the latter version thus including the equilateral triangle as a special case. Examples of isosceles triangles include the isosceles right triangle, the golden triangle, and the faces of bipyramids and certain Catalan solids.
AreaArea is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or plane area refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while surface area refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat.
Altitude (triangle)In geometry, an altitude of a triangle is a line segment through a vertex and perpendicular to a line containing the the side opposite the vertex. This line containing the opposite side is called the extended base of the altitude. The intersection of the extended base and the altitude is called the foot of the altitude. The length of the altitude, often simply called "the altitude", is the distance between the extended base and the vertex. The process of drawing the altitude from the vertex to the foot is known as dropping the altitude at that vertex.
ParallelogramIn Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equal measure. The congruence of opposite sides and opposite angles is a direct consequence of the Euclidean parallel postulate and neither condition can be proven without appealing to the Euclidean parallel postulate or one of its equivalent formulations.
Triangle inequalityIn mathematics, the triangle inequality states that for any triangle, the sum of the lengths of any two sides must be greater than or equal to the length of the remaining side. This statement permits the inclusion of degenerate triangles, but some authors, especially those writing about elementary geometry, will exclude this possibility, thus leaving out the possibility of equality. If x, y, and z are the lengths of the sides of the triangle, with no side being greater than z, then the triangle inequality states that with equality only in the degenerate case of a triangle with zero area.
Hyperbolic geometryIn mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai–Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced with: For any given line R and point P not on R, in the plane containing both line R and point P there are at least two distinct lines through P that do not intersect R. (Compare the above with Playfair's axiom, the modern version of Euclid's parallel postulate.) The hyperbolic plane is a plane where every point is a saddle point.
Median (geometry)In geometry, a median of a triangle is a line segment joining a vertex to the midpoint of the opposite side, thus bisecting that side. Every triangle has exactly three medians, one from each vertex, and they all intersect each other at the triangle's centroid. In the case of isosceles and equilateral triangles, a median bisects any angle at a vertex whose two adjacent sides are equal in length. The concept of a median extends to tetrahedra.
Distance geometryDistance geometry is the branch of mathematics concerned with characterizing and studying sets of points based only on given values of the distances between pairs of points. More abstractly, it is the study of semimetric spaces and the isometric transformations between them. In this view, it can be considered as a subject within general topology. Historically, the first result in distance geometry is Heron's formula in 1st century AD.
