Geometry

Early use of geometry in Egypt is connected with the use of daily lifestyles, fabrication of objects, construction, monuments, and calculation of areas of fields. Designs from pottery and weaving show early use of patterns, congruence, and symmetry. Egyptians used math in their daily lifestyles to help meet daily needs and cultural choices. Herodotus, a Greek historian, traced the use of Egyptian geometry for redistributing land to their owners after each flood in the Nile. A Greek philosopher, Aristotle made the assumption that Geometry in Egypt was used for leisure and rituals.

Egyptians correctly calculated the areas of some surfaces like the square, the rectangle, the triangle, and the trapezoid and had good approximation of the area of the circle: A=(8/9d)^2, making (16/9)^2 ≈ 3.1605. It was uncovered that Egyptians had the knowledge of proportions through the decorations on the side walls of the funeral chamber of the father of Ramses II. Egyptian monuments and pyramids were made from the calculations of Egyptian scribes. To calculate the volume of the cube, the prism, and the cylinder they multiplied the base by the height and to calculate the volume of the pyramid they did V=⅓(bh). To calculate the truncated pyramid (a pyramid with the top part cut off) with square bases a^2 and b^2, the equation is V= ⅓(a^2 + ab + b^2)h with an unsupported explanation to how they got this equation.