Customer Reviews

Introduction to Geometry (Wiley Classics Library)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a wonderful book. It isn't for mathematical beginners, but it isn't opaque either. It requires a student to think, experiment and to learn by puzzling things out in one's mind rather than simple memorization and regurgitation. Nor does it follow the all too common modern method of over simplifying things to allow people to pretend they have learned math while only dabbling in a few basic topics.

This book is amply illustrated with many exercises (answers are provided at the back for all the exercises). The book also has some humor and wit with the quotes it distributes throughout the book to help liven things up.

There is also a list of helpful references and an index. When reading the book, don't be afraid of going to a dictionary or the web or some other math books for clarification of some terms or more basic concepts. It is essential to have everything clear in your mind before moving on or you will stumble. As in all math, it is like a building with the next stage being built on the present one which is built on the previous one. You can't skip steps very successfully very often.

This is a great volume to have in your library, but even better to work through.

This is Coxeter best book. Introduction to Geometry covers a wide range of topics and is the first book that I will look at for any geometry topic. It is now a little dated but only in the topics that it does not cover. Like all of Coxeter works each topic is clear and to the point. If you only buy one book on geometry this is it.

A better title for this book would be "Advanced Topics in Geometry". The chapters are pretty much self-contained.

This book presumes a thorough, rigorous knowledge of high school geometry such as you might get in a college geometry course designed for future teachers along with considerable mathematical maturity.

This is the best book I've seen covering geometry at this level. Coxeter was known as an apostle of visualization in geometry; many other books that cover this material just give you page after page of symbols with no diagrams. He motivates all the topics well, and lays out the big picture for the reader rather than just presenting a compendium of facts. This is a survey of a huge field, but he does a great job of focusing on the most important results. As other reviewers have noted, this book is not "introductory" in the sense of high school geometry; it's introductory in the sense of being the kind of book a college math major would use in his/her first upper-division geometry course. It doesn't presuppose a great deal of mathematical knowledge, but it probably isn't a book that one could appreciate without having already developed quite a high level of mathematical maturity.

H.S.M. Coxeter is a legend in Geometry, primarily for his work on higher dimensional objects...polytopes, and the Physics applicable, study of Symmetry. The book covers the gamut of Geometry, touching on the peaks and covering the entire range. No book could cover the entire subject, in one volume. This is an "Introduction" for someone who has already made peace with Mathematics....its not an elementary text. The proofs are rigorous and many details are not presented as the volume was written for university students. I reccomend it for true Math Philes. Dr.Pratt.

The only reason I give it a 4/5 is because the diagrams need to be labeled. It's pretty hard to keep up with the conversation when the author refers to a poorly labeled complex diagram. I think Coxeter's other book does a great job and you can download it for free or buy it for under $10. It is a great introduction to college level geometry; and introduction because it doesn't really go into too much depth, but is not shallow either. I would recommend it, but buy it used because it's just not one of those books you'll constantly look back at for help in the future...it's pretty much a one read and that's it.

And not really to modern geometry, but rather to Coxeter-style geometry. I studied with Coxeter as an undergraduate (he was a very good teacher), and am a professional geometer, but I have never liked this book. Unfortunately, there is no good "Introduction to Geometry", and hence, 2500 years after Archimedes, still no royal road to it. I would very much recommend Thurston's notes (or his book, which is a little easier going, but has a lot less content), or (on a more basic level) Geometric Transformations by Yaglom.

I have the first edition of this book and learned much of what I know of Geometry from it. As a book, I highly recommend it.

But the price is absurdly high!!! It it a reprint, in paperback, and less than 500 pages. There is no way that it should be more than $30!

Charging $97 is just pure greed on the part of the publisher.

Shame on Wiley.

This is a book that can lead you into the beauty of geometry. Mathematics is not constructed with knowledges and techniques, but the wisdom and ideas. This book does reflect it.