ISBN: | 978-5-5089-6376-7 |
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai-Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry, meaning that the parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced. The parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry is equivalent to the statement that, in two dimensional space, for any given line R and point P not on R, there is exactly one line through P that does not intersect R; i.e., that is parallel to R. In hyperbolic geometry there are at least two distinct lines through P which do not intersect R, so the parallel postulate is false. Models have been constructed within Euclidean geometry that obey the axioms of hyperbolic geometry, thus proving that the parallel postulate is independent of the other postulates of Euclid (assuming that those other postulates are in fact consistent).