Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding

I am a high school math teacher, and I loved this book! I taught it to home school classes, and highly recommend it.

I am currently using this text to teach my son high school Geometry -- and it has made my job such a pleasure!

While earning my undergrad degree in math, I had to slog my way through many, many math texts -- some were fairly well written (for my day), some were simply miserable with the authors spending more time proving their intelligence than explaining/proving the concepts.

Thankfully, Harold Jacobs is on a mission to not only teach, but also capture the imagination of the student. My son's interest in engineering and design has been re-kindled and I am so very happy to have selected this text.

Each chapter is broken down into manageable sections, and each of these sections is supported by numerous engaging exercises -- many of which reference common tangible objects, far-away places or classical historical thought problems.

As my son prefers to be "hands-on," I'm also quite grateful that the student must use multiple methods to address each concept. Many of the exercises in each section require you to draw/construct figures that illustrate theoretical concepts... What better way to learn than to have to follow in the steps of the ancient thinkers that developed these concepts in the first place?

Jacobs also does a nice job of easing the student into proofs, providing classical definitions of logical reasoning concepts and some "fill-in-the-blank" proofs before introducing full-length "solo" proofs.

Overall, the breadth and depth of the text is wonderful -- it's simply amazing how he can delve into such complicated areas and the student still surfaces SMILING. He's a master!

This is a good geometry book, but not as wonderful as the first edition.
Visually it is more colorful, but intellectually it is less appealing.

I had liked the cartoons, the geometry topics I did not learn in high school, and the entertaining and useful introduction to logic chapter 1. My 8 year old son also found it fun and accessible. The cartoons do not seem as witty in their new placement, the interesting Heron's theorem is banished to the exercises, Pythagoras for different shapes has also been augmented with hints for the dull reader, p.419, and and the wonderful logic lesson in chapter 2 is almost entirely gone.

The ilustrations, cartoons, and discussions, no longer seem designed to make one think. This de - emphasis on thinking, and increased stress on color pictures, make this edition resemble the "highlights for children" magazines my mother loved for our kindergarten class. If your goal is to teach geometry to say a third grade class (and I would applaud that), then maybe this is a good choice, but for high schoolers, I recommend you try to find the earlier editions.

Compare the proof of SSS, in Jacobs 3rd edition, page 164, to that of Euclid, prop. 4 book one, to see the cost of omitting rigid motions.

I am being critical here of a well written work, but I am not so much comparing Jacobs to other competing books, where it stands very high, but to its own previous versions, which were decidedly superior in intellectual quality for an intelligent high school student. Having known and loved the older version, this one is a disappointment, the moreso since something rare and wonderful has been lost.

My son is the creative type and hated his Algebra class. Geometry, however, fascinates him, due to a large degree, I believe, on the creative presentation of this book.