The Geometer's Sketchpad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Geometer's Sketchpad
Geometer's Sketchpad editing a circumcircle
Developed by	KCP Technologies
Latest release	4.07 / September 2006
OS	Mac OS X, Windows, Linux (under Wine.)
Genre	interactive geometry software
License	Proprietary
Website	Official website

The Geometer's Sketchpad is a popular commercial interactive geometry software program for exploring Euclidean geometry, algebra, calculus, and other areas of mathematics. It was created by Nicholas Jackiw. It is designed to run on Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 or later and Mac OS 8.6 or later (including Mac OS X). It also runs on Linux under Wine with few minor bugs.

Geometer's Sketchpad includes the traditional Euclidean tools of classical Geometric constructions; that is, if a figure (such as the pentadecagon) can be constructed with compass and straight-edge, it can also be constructed using this program. However, the program also allows users to employ transformations to "cheat," creating figures impossible to construct under the traditional compass-and-straight-edge rules (such as the regular nonagon).

[edit] See also

Interactive geometry software

[edit] References

Kimberling, Clark. Geometry in Action: A Discovery Approach Using The Geometer's Sketchpad. Key College Publishing, Emeryville, California (www.keycollege.com), (2003), ISBN 1-931914-02-8.
Scher, Daniel. Lifting the Curtain: The Evolution of The Geometer's Sketchpad Mathematics Educator, v10 n2 p42-48 Sum 2000