Geometric Problems brings into English the work of Ivan Ivanovich Aleksandrov (1856-1919), a Russian mathematics teacher, methodologist, and popularizer of science. A graduate of St Petersburg University, he taught for decades in Tambov and later lectured in Moscow. He is remembered as a founder of the Russian literature on geometric construction and its methodology.
First appearing in the early 1880s, Aleksandrov's book was a landmark because it organized problems by the ideas used to solve them-not by arbitrary categories or difficulty. The 1894 Moscow edition presented here is a method-centered course in geometric problem solving. The 1953 biographical bibliography records eighteen editions; Soviet-era reissues and French and German editions show its continuing reach and more than seven decades of pedagogical life.
What is in the book? Readers move from direct constructions and the theorems that support them to geometric loci, similarity and multiplication, symmetry and straightening, parallel translation, inversion, rotation, and algebraic methods. Problems are treated through analysis, construction, proof, and discussion. Full and brief solutions show not only what to draw, but how to discover the construction and prove that it works.
Why it still matters: this is not a catalogue of disconnected diagrams. It is a course in mathematical invention-how a difficult figure is reduced to familiar ones, how a locus turns a condition into a construction, and how algebra and transformation ideas clarify a geometric solution. Originally prepared for senior secondary-school classes, the book remains valuable for serious students, teachers, independent learners, olympiad preparation, and readers interested in the history of mathematical education.
This English edition preserves the original problem numbering, the method-centered sequence, and all 98 source-faithful figures while presenting the text in clear contemporary English. Translated by Valery Manokhin, PhD, and published by Northern Star Academic Press. Discover this and other English editions of classic Russian mathematics-including Kiselev's Arithmetic, Algebra, and Calculus-at russianmathbooks.com
