No label defined (Q4940097)

This book is addressed mainly to advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in mathematics. The text investigates the Euclidean 2- and 3-spaces. It establishes a solid foundation of these geometries and analyses their axiomatic structure. Yet, its main interest is devoted to the groups belonging to the Euclidean spaces. So the motions and similarities of these geometries are discussed in detail. The results are applied to study a number of groups: the symmetry groups of polygons, the frieze groups, the wallpaper groups and the groups of the regular polyedra. In the introduction, chapter 1, the author gives some motivation for his later investigations. For example he presents some illustrations of the wonderful geometric art of former cultures found in the American Southwest. He points out that geometry is important to many fields. ``Geometry is everywhere'', he states. Chapter 2 presents an axiomatic foundation for the Euclidean spaces. The following three chapters review the contents of school geometric lessons from a more advanced viewpoint and feature a number of nonroutine exercises. The chapters 6 and 7 contain the theory of motions (including classification theorems) and the theory of similarities. The final chapter 8 treats the groups already mentioned above. For example it is shown that each wallpaper group belongs to exactly one of 17 isomorphism classes. It should be emphasized that the book is filled with historical and bibliographic notes, good motivations and a number of exercises. Altogether, it can be regarded as a good approach to a special part of geometry on an intermediate level.