[Eli5] What is non-Euclidean geometry, and what would it look like in the real world?

Question

This term seems to come up in science fiction every so often, and the layman description is that it’s just 2d geometry on a curved surface?

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

Not an expert, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but one example could be railroad tracks. In Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never meet, but if you stand on the tracks and look down them (eg/ perspective (non-euclidean) geometry), they appear to converge despite being parallel.