Spherical geometry other geometric concepts are defined as in plane geometry, but with straight lines replaced by great circles. Thus, in spherical geometry, angles are defined between great circles, resulting in a spherical trigonometry that differs from ordinary trigonometry in many respects; for example, the sum of the interior angles of a triangle exceeds 180 degrees. Spherical geometry is "not" elliptic geometry, but is rather a "subset" of elliptic geometry. For example, it shares with that geometry the property that a line has no parallels through a given point. Contrast this with Euclidean geometry, in which a line has one parallel through
Foundations of geometry as "Birkhoff's axioms". These postulates are all based on basic geometry that can be experimentally verified with a scale and protractor. In a radical departure from the synthetic approach of Hilbert, Birkhoff was the first to build the foundations of geometry on the real number system. It is this powerful assumption that permits the small number of axioms in this system. Birkhoff uses four undefined terms: "point", "line", "distance" and "angle". His postulates are: Postulate I: Postulate of Line Measure. The points "A", "B", ... of any line can be put into 1:1 correspondence with the real numbers "x" so