Circles: A Mathematical View (Spectrum)

This revised edition of a mathematical classic originally published in 1957 will bring to a new generation of students the enjoyment of investigating that simplest of mathematical figures, the circle. The author has supplemented this new edition with a special chapter designed to introduce readers to the vocabulary of circle concepts with which the readers of two generations ago were familiar. Readers of Circles need only be armed with paper, pencil, compass, and straight edge to find great pleasure in following the constructions and theorems. Those who think that geometry using Euclidean tools died out with the ancient Greeks will be pleasantly surprised to learn many interesting results which were only discovered in modern times. Novices and experts alike will find much to enlighten them in chapters dealing with the representation of a circle by a point in three-space, a model for non-Euclidean geometry, and the isoperimetric property of the circle.