EXCURSIONS IN GEOMETRY

A follow-up to his Excursions in Number Theory, this book is intended to demonstrate that geometry is really not so dull as you may have thought it. It actually requires a considerable prior interest in and inclination for mathematical recreation, since it takes one beyond the ""trivial"" theorems proved within the framework of the usual geometry course to the ""startlingly good ones just around the corner."" The excursion progresses through Harmonic division, Apollonian circles, inversion geometry, the hexlet, conic sections, projective geometry, the Golden Section, and angle trisection, with side jaunts to some of geometry's classic unsolved problems. The few ""practical"" applications provided are not exactly the sort of problems you'd run into every day. Though the material does not require extensive new definitions and abstractions, and the tools are the familiar straightedge and compass, it is definitely not mathematics for the millions.