Geometry: The Next Dimension: Surfaces and Solids
The Next Dimension: Surfaces and Solids
Although you might be able to name a few two-dimensional objects, most of the objects you encounter in your day-to-day lives are three-dimensional. Even a page in a book has three dimensions: a length, a height, and a thickness.
Because geometry is useful in dealing with the objects you encounter in your day-to-day lives, it is necessary to spend some time talking about three-dimensional objects. Some of the most common three-dimensional objects are prisms, cylinders, cones, spheres, and pyramids. These are mathematical terms for sheets of paper, soda cans, dunce caps, marbles, and pyramids.
The basis of three-dimensional objects are two-dimensional shapes. You will take polygons and circles in one plane and connect them to other polygons, circles, or points that lie in a different (but parallel) plane. I like to think of this process as mathematical wing walking.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry © 2004 by Denise Szecsei, Ph.D.. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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