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Friday, April 24, 2009

Quote of the Day

Whereas basic plane geometry is concerned with points and lines and their interactions, most of the early geometry of the Babylonians, Arabs, and Greeks was spherical geometry--the study of the Earth, idealized as a sphere. This early science was astronomy and the need to measure time accurately by the sun.
From a web page about Spherical Geometry via a tip from Dennis. It seems the ancients knew a lot more than we generally give them credit for.

1 comment:

  1. Great minds think alike ;-)

    As chance would have it, I just did a piece about Pythagoras theorem on a sphere :-)

    See http://www.savory.de/blog_apr_09.htm#20090420

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