Today was the first edition of `Geometry Cafe’ – a little lunchtime group to discuss various geometrical bits and bobs. I spoke, mostly about areas and volumes of various standard solids and plane figures.
For example, I went through a cute proof of the formula for the volume of a sphere, more or less rigorous, and without any calculus. The main tool is Cavalieri’s Principle.
Although the group wasn’t too well attended (more lecturers than students in the audience), I think I will continue it. There were several suggestions of topics, including Platonic Solids, some important plane curves, conic sections, knots and braids, non-Euclidean Geometry….
sylvy's mathsy blog 