What’s non-Euclidean geometry?

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I never got beyond calculus in school, and I’ve heard this term thrown around by smart math and science people bit have no clue what it means or why it’s special.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

As far as I have scrolled, many people gave you the same example of curved spaces that is non-euclidean: a sphere, where angles sum to more than 180 degrees and parallel lines always meet. Correct example, but only one of two main ones.

There is another example of curved space that behaves another way: if you live on the surface of a Pringle (that continues indefinitely, and is always curved like a Pringle). There, triangles have total angles of less than 180 degrees.

Also, since there is more area further away from the middle, the following holds: for a given straight line and one point elsewhere, you can draw multiple straught lines never intersecting the original one, that all pass through the point.

In the plane, this would be the parallel line through that point, which is unique. On a sphere, there can be no such line. But on a Pringle (mathematically speaking, in a space with negative curvature), you can draw multiple such lines, since with so much more space on the outside of the Pringle than on the inside, fitting more straight lines becomes easier.

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