Talk:Area of a Parallelogram
We need to settle this before we get far into geometry. I think that we should use the terms parallelogram, rhombus, rectangle, and square, because those are the terms that I think will be most familiar to the majority of the population. --Cynic-----(talk) 21:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Do we need in this context to bother about the term "rhombus" at all? Once you've covered the square, rectangle and parallelogram you've done the lot. What is the difference between a "rhomb" and a "rhomboid" anyway? --Matt Westwood 22:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
... while I was about it I tidied it up some more and added some links (to pages still to be written) for definitions of various things. Obviously all work in progress for the geometers ...
Actually I'm wondering whether, since we're going to results as basic as this, we might want to go to Euclidean level of detail and precision with this, I'm concerned that some of our proofs may become circular.
Does anyone know of a decent (free) software package for creating the appropriate diagrams, btw? I'm using GeoGebra for my own stuff and find it's a bit of a wrestle. --Matt Westwood 22:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Circularity is an issue. I'm hesitant to go into fine toothed comb levels of detail on every step, largely because I'm lazy. That said, if anyone has a copy of the elements handy, they're welcome to go into whatever level of detail they like. I can look for a good resource and try to deal with it in a couple weeks (after finals are over). --Cynic-----(talk) 22:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and rhomb = rhombus, rhomboid = parallelogram that is neither a rhombus nor a rectangle. --Cynic-----(talk) 22:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I have the Heath edition of Elements (Dover publications, reproduction of the 1956 2nd Edition) which I could use to start on this from solid scratch but as I say, making the diagrams might be a pain. I'll see what I can do with the tools I've got, but it may wait till I've got all this tedious Analysis out of the way. G'luck with finals btw. --Matt Westwood 23:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
