2: Geometry
- Page ID
- 113124
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You use geometric terms in everyday language, often without thinking about it. For example, any time you say “walk along this line” or “watch out, this road quickly angles to the left” you are using geometric terms to make sense of the environment around you. You use these terms flexibly, and people generally know what you are talking about.
In the world of mathematics, each of these geometric terms has a specific definition. It is important to know these definitions, as well as how different figures are constructed, to become familiar with the language of geometry.
The material in this chapter is from Developmental Math by NROC.
- 2.1: Basic Geometric Concepts
- Geometric shapes and figures are all around us. The basic building blocks of geometry are points, lines, angles and planes.
- 2.2: Properties of Angles
- Imagine two separate and distinct lines on a plane. There are two possibilities for these lines: they will either intersect at one point, or they will never intersect. When two lines intersect, four angles are formed. Understanding how these angles relate to each other can help you figure out how to measure them, even if you only have information about the size of one angle.
- 2.3: Triangles
- Geometric shapes are an important part of the study of geometry. The triangle is one of the basic shapes in geometry. All triangles have three sides and three angles, but they come in many different shapes and sizes. Within the group of all triangles, the characteristics of a triangle’s sides and angles are used to classify it even further. Triangles have some important characteristics, and understanding these characteristics allows you to apply the ideas in real-world problems.
- 2.4: The Pythagorean Theorem
- The Pythagorean Theorem states that in any right triangle, the sum of the squares of the lengths of the triangle’s legs is the same as the square of the length of the triangle’s hypotenuse. Put simply, if you know the lengths of two sides of a right triangle, you can apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the third side. Remember, this theorem only works for right triangles.
- 2.5: Quadrilaterals
- Quadrilaterals are a special type of polygon. As with triangles and other polygons, quadrilaterals have special properties and can be classified by characteristics of their angles and sides. Understanding the properties of different quadrilaterals can help you in solving problems that involve this type of polygon.
- 2.6: Perimeter and Area
- Perimeter and area are two important and fundamental mathematical topics. They help you to quantify physical space and also provide a foundation for more advanced mathematics. Perimeter is a measurement of the distance around a shape and area gives us an idea of how much surface the shape covers. Understanding how much space you have and learning how to fit shapes together exactly will help you when you paint a room, buy a home, remodel a kitchen, or build a deck.
- 2.7: Circles
- Circles are a common shape. You see them all over: wheels on a car, Frisbees passing through the air, compact discs delivering data. These are all circles. A circle is a two-dimensional figure just like polygons and quadrilaterals. However, circles are measured differently than these other shapes. You even have to use some different terms to describe them.
- 2.8: Solids
- Three-dimensional solids have length, width, and height. You use a measurement called volume to figure out the amount of space that these solids take up. To find the volume of a geometric solid, you can use a volume formula that is specific to that solid. You may also encounter composite geometric solids. These are solids that combine two or more basic solids. To find their volume, identify the simpler solids that make up the composite figure, find the volumes of those solids, and combine them.
- 2.12: Exercises
- This page contains exercise problems related to the material from this chapter.
Thumbnail: A two-dimensional perspective projection of a sphere (CC BY-3.0; Geek3 via Wikipedia).