Geometry
Axioms for various systems of geometry usually use a typed language, with the different types corresponding to different geometric objects such as points, lines, circles, planes, and so on. The signature will often consist of binary incidence relations between objects of different types; for example, the relation that a point lies on a line. The signature may have more complicated relations; for example ordered geometry might have a ternary "betweenness" relation for 3 points, which says whether one lies between two others, or a "congruence" relation between 2 pairs of points.
Some examples of axiomatized systems of geometry include ordered geometry, absolute geometry, affine geometry, Euclidean geometry, projective geometry, and hyperbolic geometry. For each of these geometries there are many different and inequivalent systems of axioms for various dimensions. Some of these axiom systems include "completeness" axioms that are not first order.
As a typical example, the axioms for projective geometry use 2 types, points and lines, and a binary incidence relation between points and lines. If point and line variables are indicated by small and capital letter, and a incident to A is written as aA, then one set of axioms is
- (There is a line through any 2 distinct points a,b ...)
- (... which is unique)
- (Veblen's axiom: if ab and cd lie on intersecting lines, then so do ac and bd.)
- (Every line has at least 3 points)
Euclid did not state all the axioms for Euclidean geometry explicitly, and the first complete list was given by Hilbert in Hilbert's axioms. This is not a first order axiomatization as one of Hilbert's axioms is a second order completeness axiom. Tarski's axioms are a first order axiomatization of Euclidean geometry. Tarski showed this axiom system is complete and decidable by relating it to the complete and decidable theory of real closed fields.
Read more about this topic: List Of First-order Theories
Famous quotes containing the word geometry:
“... geometry became a symbol for human relations, except that it was better, because in geometry things never go bad. If certain things occur, if certain lines meet, an angle is born. You cannot fail. It’s not going to fail; it is eternal. I found in rules of mathematics a peace and a trust that I could not place in human beings. This sublimation was total and remained total. Thus, I’m able to avoid or manipulate or process pain.”
—Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911)
“I am present at the sowing of the seed of the world. With a geometry of sunbeams, the soul lays the foundations of nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematising the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.”
—J.G. (James Graham)