Welcome to Geometry! Geometry is from Greek, geo (earth) and metron (measurement). This ancient branch of mathematics was used to measure fields (and tax them!) as well as compute areas and volumes of objects and goods. This body of knowledge, developed and used in construction, navigation, and surveying by the Babylonians and Egyptians was passed to the Greeks, then to the Arabs, and back to the Europeans, all the while being built up and expanded. Simultaneously, ancient Hindu, Chinese and American cultures were also developing geometric knowledge. There is some evidence of shared understandings among these ancient cultures. In modern times, geometry is thought of as the study of properties of space that are related with distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. We will be studying Euclidean geometry, which postulates are deduced from 5 proposed axioms that are generally accepted to be true. To me, geometry is like defining a universe. Start with some basic accepted truths and build from there. So cool. I hope you are as excited as I am about studying geometry.