Geometry Introduction

For as long as you can remember, your parents have always been free spirits. Actually, your friends prefer to call them hippies, but you've been raised to dislike societal labels. And honestly, do three Grateful Dead posters in the living room make you a hippie?

Although to be fair, they might have a point. After all, your first rattle had peace signs on it and your baby blanket was neither blue nor pink but tie-dye. Plus, it gets tiring to explain to everyone why you call your parents Wildflower and River instead of Mom and Dad.

So it only makes sense that after studying hours upon hours for your geometry test, your parents encourage you to unleash. "You've studied enough," they tell you. "And we know you'll do fine on that test tomorrow. Tonight, you can run wild. Be free. Paint the town red!"

You've already bought 50 gallons of red (though actually, it's called "Blissful Burgundy") paint before your friends tell you that painting the town red is just an expression. How were you supposed to know that? You've taken your parents literally ever since they stood on a street corner with a sign that said "Free Love" and gave hugs and kisses to passersby, free of charge.

With 50 gallons of Blissful Burgundy, what else can you do except go through with it? Time to paint the town red. Literally.

The thing is, you've been studying so much geometry that all you can do is think about how much flat surface you'll have to cover with this red paint. In your head, you begin to calculate all the areas of the walls, the roads, the streetlamps—all the 2D surfaces that will soon be the color of Blissful Burgundy.

Since geometry is all about mathematically understanding the world around us, it makes sense that it's everywhere we look. Even though our world is in a minimum of three dimensions (some might argue four, five, or even an infinite number of them), our vision is in two dimensions. In fact, there are many aspects of the second dimension that we can apply to the real world.

Whether you like it or not, the two-dimensional space known as area is one of those concepts that's quite literally everywhere. Much like Blissful Burgundy is soon to be. Now get out there and make Wildflower and River proud.