Therefore all their sides have constant ratios. It is tempting to think that in this day of microcomputers and sophisticated graphics that geometrical techniques are obsolete in structural geology or soon will be. A thorough knowledge of geometry is absolutely necessary for computer graphics and writing structural geology programs on a computer. In fact, the need is even more stringent than ever. You cannot program a computer or calculator to solve structural problems without a good knowledge of three-dimensional analytical geometry, a subject normally encountered in the second year of college calculus.
Many students expect to get a lucrative job programming computers.
There are relatively few really basic, widely-used utility programs and these have all pretty much been written. The future belongs to people who can program computers for specific applications and use existing software to solve problems. You cannot program a computer unless you can solve the problem yourself. Whether geologic information is published in print or displayed on a computer terminal screen, various sorts of graphical methods will have to be used. A geologist must be able to read and interpret a wide variety of diagrams.