Thread: Euclid's 5 Postulates

I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding the 5th Postulate and was wondering if someone could be kind enough to explain it to me in the simplest way possible because I have read at least two other websites and all they have done is confuse me more, I AM NOT ASKING FOR HOMEWORK ANSWERS,

I have a Geometry Project and I was assigned Euclid's 5 Postulates and to explain how they are right and I get 1-4 but 5 I'm still foggy on

thanks

I have moved the post to Mathematics. Is this one of the web sites you looked at?
Parallel postulate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After doing some looking up, I notice it is quite longer and wordier than the others, which are relatively simple. So I understand the confusion involved.

Originally Posted by From Wolfram MathWorld

5. If two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough. This postulate is equivalent to what is known as the parallel postulate.

So I believe it's basically saying that if you have two lines that (each and separately) intersect some line L, and on the same side the inner angles add up to less than 180 degrees, then those two lines must intersect each other at some point.

Does this help?