Principles of Geometry

A benchmark study of projective geometry and the birational theory of surfaces, first published between 1922 and 1925.

H. F. Baker (Author)

9781108017794, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 2010

254 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.5 cm, 0.33 kg

Henry Frederick Baker (1866–1956) was a renowned British mathematician specialising in algebraic geometry. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1898 and appointed the Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in the University of Cambridge in 1914. First published between 1922 and 1925, the six-volume Principles of Geometry was a synthesis of Baker's lecture series on geometry and was the first British work on geometry to use axiomatic methods without the use of co-ordinates. The first four volumes describe the projective geometry of space of between two and five dimensions, with the last two volumes reflecting Baker's later research interests in the birational theory of surfaces. The work as a whole provides a detailed insight into the geometry which was developing at the time of publication. This, the third volume, describes the principal configurations of space of three dimensions.

Preface
1. Introduction to the theory of quadric surfaces
2. Relations with a fixed conic. Spheres, confocal surfaces: quadrics through the intersection of two general quadrics
3. Cubic curves in space. The intersection of two or more quadrics
4. The general cubic surface: introductory theorems
Corrections for volumes 1 and 2
Index.

Subject Areas: Applied mathematics [PBW]