Geometries

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.

The purpose of this book is to provide a presentation of the geometrical theory of Lagrange and Hamilton spaces of order k, greater or equal to 1, as well as to define and investigate some new Analytical Mechanics. It is shown that a rigorous geometrical theory of conservative and non-conservative mechanical systems can be raised based on the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian geometries.