A Course in Modern Geometries

Book excerpt: A Course in Modern Geometries is designed for a junior-senior level course for mathematics majors, including those who plan to teach in secondary school. Chapter 1 presents several finite geometries in an axiomatic framework. Chapter 2 introduces Euclid's geometry and the basic ideas of non-Euclidean geometry. The synthetic approach of Chapters 1 - 2 is followed by the analytic treatment of transformations of the Euclidean plane in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 presents plane projective geometry both synthetically and analytically. The extensive use of matrix representations of groups of transformations in Chapters 3 - 4 reinforces ideas from linear algebra and serves as excellent preparation for a course in abstract algebra. Each chapter includes a list of suggested sources for applications and/or related topics.