An Update and Analysis of George Salmon’s A Treatise on Conic Sections

Redding, Dominic Patrick; Bauer, Andrew C

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An Update and Analysis of George Salmon’s A Treatise on Conic Sections

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A Treatise on Conic Sections, a geometry textbook by George Salmon first published in 1848, was reprinted by the AMS in 2005. The text is impressive in its coverage, but in need of a complete overhaul to match current textbooks in language and appearance. Conic sections are an important pre-calculus topic, but lack coverage in US education. The current high school geometry curriculum is fully covered by the first two chapters of Salmon, namely the chapter on the point and the chapter on the line. WPI offers no undergraduate geometry education. We updated the first two chapters of Salmon's treatise by modernizing the text and creating figures using Geometer's Sketchpad. We recommend further study into changing geometry education and the treatise as well as further updating of the treatise.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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