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In geometry, the parallel postulate, also called Euclid's fifth postulate because it is the fifth postulate in Euclid's Elements, is a distinctive axiom in Euclidean geometry. It states that, in two-dimensional geometry:
Hyperbolic space, developed independently by Nikolai Lobachevsky, János Bolyai and Carl Friedrich Gauss, is a geometric space analogous to Euclidean space, but such that Euclid's parallel postulate is no longer assumed to hold. Instead, the parallel postulate is replaced by the following alternative (in two dimensions):
The parallel postulate (Postulate 5): If two lines intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough.
Comparison of elliptic, Euclidean and hyperbolic geometries in two dimensions. Hyperbolic geometry is more closely related to Euclidean geometry than it seems: the only axiomatic difference is the parallel postulate. When the parallel postulate is removed from Euclidean geometry the resulting geometry is absolute geometry. There are two kinds ...
Elliptic geometry is an example of a geometry in which Euclid's parallel postulate does not hold. Instead, as in spherical geometry, there are no parallel lines since any two lines must intersect. However, unlike in spherical geometry, two lines are usually assumed to intersect at a single point (rather than two).
Parallel planes are planes in the same three-dimensional space that never meet. Parallel curves are curves that do not touch each other or intersect and keep a fixed minimum distance. In three-dimensional Euclidean space, a line and a plane that do not share a point are also said to be parallel. However, two noncoplanar lines are called skew lines.
For two thousand years, many attempts were made to prove the parallel postulate using Euclid's first four postulates. A possible reason that such a proof was so highly sought after was that, unlike the first four postulates, the parallel postulate isn't self-evident.
Without this axiom, the theory could be modeled by three-dimensional or higher-dimensional space. Axiom of Euclid. Three variants of this axiom can be given, labeled A, B and C below. They are equivalent to each other given the remaining Tarski's axioms, and indeed equivalent to Euclid's parallel postulate.