History Of Geometry Project

By Justin Grierson
  • 3000 BCE

    3000 BC Ancient Egypt

    used an early stage of geometry in several ways, including the surveying of land, construction of pyramids, and astronomy.
  • 2900 BCE

    2900 BC Ancient Egypt

    Around 2,900 BC, ancient Egyptians began using their knowledge to construct pyramids with four triangular faces and a square base.
  • 1800 BCE

    1800 BC The Moscow Papyrus

    The Moscow Papyrus is written containing 25 examples of Egyptian math.
  • 1700 BCE

    1700 BC The Rhind Papyrus

    The Rhind Papyrus is written (approximate date). The Papyrus is 1 foot tall and 18 feet wide. It contains 87 math problems mostly dealing with fractions.
  • 1650 BCE

    1650 BC

    Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, copy of a lost scroll from around 1850 BC, the scribe Ahmes presents one of the first known approximate values of π at 3.16, the first attempt at squaring the circle, earliest known use of a sort of cotangent, and knowledge of solving first order linear equations 1st millennium BC
  • 1624 BCE

    1624 BC Thales of Miletus

    Thales studies similar triangles and wrote the proof that corresponding sides of similar triangles are proportional. He also takes geometry from the level of measurement to the level of writing proofs
  • 800 BCE

    800 BC 2's Square Root

    Baudhayana, author of the Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, a Vedic Sanskrit geometric text, contains quadratic equations, and calculates the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places.
  • 700 BCE

    700 BC The Shatapatha Brahmana

    The Shatapatha Brahmana is a prose text describing Vedic rituals, history and mythology associated with the Śukla Yajurveda.
  • 600 BCE

    600 BC The Early Greeks Create Modern Geometry

    It was the early Greeks (600 BC–400 AD) that developed the principles of modern geometry beginning with Thales of Miletus (624–547 BC). Thales is credited with bringing the science of geometry from Egypt to Greece. Thales studied similar triangles and wrote the proof that corresponding sides of similar triangles are in proportion.
  • 600 BCE

    600 BC Pythagorean Triples

    the other Vedic “Sulba Sutras” (“rule of chords” in Sanskrit) use Pythagorean triples, contain of a number of geometrical proofs, and approximate π at 3.16
  • 569 BCE

    569 BC Pythagoras of Samos

    Pythagoras is regarded as the first pure mathematician to logically deduce geometric facts. However, Pythagoras didn't invent the theorem that is named after him and historians aren't completely sure he existed.
  • 455 BCE

    455 BC Zeno's Paradoxes

    Zeno writes his paradoxes for example the Rabbit and the Hare.
  • 450 BCE

    450 BC Written Numerals

    Greeks begin to use written numerals.
  • 387 BCE

    387 BC Plato's Polyhedra

    Plato founds the Academy in Athens. He identifies five polyhedral now known as Platonic bodies.
  • 360 BCE

    360 BC Irrational/Rational Comparison

    Eudoxus makes a definition allowing the possibility of using irrational lengths and comparing them with rational lengths by using cross multiplication.
  • 340 BCE

    340 BC Pappus Of Alexandria

    Pappus of Alexandria states his hexagon theorem and his centroid theorem
  • 300 BCE

    300 BC Euclid's Elements

    The next great advancement in geometry came from Euclid in 300 BC when he wrote a text titled ‘Elements.’ In this text, Euclid presented an ideal axiomatic form (now known as Euclidean geometry) in which propositions could be proven through a small set of statements that are accepted as true. In fact, Euclid was able to derive a great portion of planar geometry from just the first five postulates in ‘Elements.’
  • 250 BCE

    250 BC Volume of a Cylinder

    Archimedes discovers the formula for how to calculate the volume of a cylinder.
  • 235 BCE

    235 BC Circumference of Earth

    Eratosthenes estimates the circumference of the Earth, only missing by about 15%.
  • 853

    853 AD Synthesis of Algebra and Geometry

    Medieval Muslims synthesized algebra and geometry by placing points on a coordinate plane.

  • 1600 Rene Descartes Coordinate Geometry

    The next tremendous advancement in the field of geometry occurred in the 17th century when René Descartes discovered coordinate geometry. Coordinates and equations could be used in this type of geometry in order to illustrate proofs. The creation of coordinate geometry opened the doors to the development of calculus and physics.

  • 1628 AD Area of an Encircled Quadrilateral

    Brahmagupta created a formula for finding the area of a quadrilateral, with sides a,b,c,d, enclosed by a circle: A = The Sq. Root of (s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d). S is the semiperimeter, is found by the formula s=(a+b+c+d)/2
  • Period: to

    1777 AD Carl Friedrich Gauss

    Gauss developed the Gauss method for adding large amounts of consecutive numbers when he was six. However, his most important creation is that of non-Euclidean geometry. Non-Euclidean geometry is geometry not based on the postulates of Euclid. This includes times when the parallel postulate isn't true. Parallel Postulate - Through a given point not on a line, there is one and only one line parallel to it

  • 1800 The Development of Non-Euclidean Geometry

    In the 19th century, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Nikolai Lobachevsky, and János Bolyai formally discovered non-Euclidean geometry. In this kind of geometry, four of Euclid’s first five postulates remained consistent, but the idea that parallel lines do not meet did not stay true. This idea is a driving force behind elliptical geometry and hyperbolic geometry.

  • 1982 AD The Fractal Geometry of Nature

    In 1982, Benoit Mandelbrot publishing The Fractal Geometry of Nature, a book popularizing fractal geometry. Fractal geometry deals with fractioned dimensions.