Essential Geometry

Book excerpt: This no-nonsense guide provides students and self-learners with a clear and readable study of geometry's most important ideas. Tim Hill's distraction-free approach combines decades of tutoring experience with the proven methods of his Russian math teachers. The result: learn in a few days what conventional schools stretch into months. Covers classical and analytic geometry. Teaches general principles that can be applied to a wide variety of problems. Avoids the mindless and excessive routine computations that characterize conventional textbooks. Treats geometry as a logically coherent discipline, not as a disjointed collection of techniques. Restores proofs to their proper place to remove doubt, convey insight, and encourage precise logical thinking. Omits digressions, excessive formalities, and repetitive exercises. Includes problems (with solutions) that extend your knowledge rather than merely reinforce it. Contents 1. Triangles 2. Circles 3. Cylinders 4. Cones 5. Spheres 6. Analytic Geometry 7. Solutions 8. Geometry Cheat Sheet About the Author Tim Hill is a statistician living in Boulder, Colorado. He holds degrees in mathematics and statistics from Stanford University and the University of Colorado. Tim has written self-teaching guides for algebra, trigonometry, geometry, precalculus, advanced precalculus, permutations and combinations, debt, mortgages, and Excel pivot tables. When he's not crunching numbers, Tim climbs rocks, hikes canyons, and avoids malls.