I found the following on a great website. It's hosted by Drexel University in Philadelphia. "Dr. Rick" is a professor who authored the following. I have it here b/c I thought you'ld enjoy it.
Feel free to visit the website at http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
All geometry courses more or less follow the trail blazed by Euclid, before 300 BC. There were others who contributed to geometry centuries earlier ... but Euclid is the one who systematized geometry - set it up as a collection of definitions, postulates, and theorems, all logically following from one another. Look here for information on the history of geometry:http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/geometry.html
What is it used for? Who uses it? The very word "geometry" points to its practical origins: it means "measurement of the earth." A Greek named Eratosthenes, among others, used it (and its relative, trigonometry, which means "measurement of triangles") to find the circumference of the earth. (This was crucial for mapmaking, and it's even more relevant today, with all our satellites!)Geometry is still used in its original sense by surveyors. It's used every second by computers...The greatest value of geometry has nothing to do with what people use it for. What Euclid did 2300 years ago was revolutionary because it got people thinking logically and reasoning things out - thinking about why something is true. In geometry, something is true or it isn't, and you don't prove something by yelling loud enough to intimidate people, or by being persuasive and winning in the polls. Euclid really set the stage for science, for careful examination of the world, of cause and effect. And every year, when students study geometry, it once again sets the stage for some of those students to head into sciences and technical fields that require careful thought. So I would say that all science and technology is a "use" of geometry, whether or not people ever think about circles and triangles.
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