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Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, Elements.Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions from these.
[5] Many other statements equivalent to the parallel postulate have been suggested, some of them appearing at first to be unrelated to parallelism, and some seeming so self-evident that they were unconsciously assumed by people who claimed to have proven the parallel postulate from Euclid's other postulates. These equivalent statements include:
The Elements (Ancient Greek: Στοιχεῖα Stoikheîa) is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid c. 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions (theorems and constructions), and mathematical proofs of the propositions.
Based on ancient Greek methods, an axiomatic system is a formal description of a way to establish the mathematical truth that flows from a fixed set of assumptions. Although applicable to any area of mathematics, geometry is the branch of elementary mathematics in which this method has most extensively been successfully applied.
Saccheri quadrilaterals. A Saccheri quadrilateral is a quadrilateral with two equal sides perpendicular to the base.It is named after Giovanni Gerolamo Saccheri, who used it extensively in his 1733 book Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus (Euclid freed of every flaw), an attempt to prove the parallel postulate using the method reductio ad absurdum.
Euclid introduced certain axioms, or postulates, expressing primary or self-evident properties of points, lines, and planes. [39] He proceeded to rigorously deduce other properties by mathematical reasoning. The characteristic feature of Euclid's approach to geometry was its rigor, and it has come to be known as axiomatic or synthetic geometry ...
In hyperbolic geometry (where Wallis's postulate is false) similar triangles are congruent. In the axiomatic treatment of Euclidean geometry given by George David Birkhoff (see Birkhoff's axioms ) the SAS similarity criterion given above was used to replace both Euclid's parallel postulate and the SAS axiom which enabled the dramatic shortening ...
These postulates are all based on basic geometry that can be confirmed experimentally with a scale and protractor. Since the postulates build upon the real numbers, the approach is similar to a model-based introduction to Euclidean geometry. Birkhoff's axiomatic system was utilized in the secondary-school textbook by Birkhoff and Beatley. [2]