You are on page 1of 3

William Wallace Proof of the Butterfly Theorem

In a letter to William Wallace, dated 7 April 1805, Sir William Herschel - the discoverer of
Uranus and its two major moons, Titania and Oberon - wrote:
I have kept a little problem for you which a friend of mine has sent me
who says he cannot find a solution of it. I mentioned to him that I had a
friend who would probably help him to one. The problem is this. Given
AB the diameter of a circle. CD a chord cutting it at right angles in K.
EF, and HG two other chords drawn any how through the point K; and HF,
EG chords joining the extremes of EF, HG. Required to prove that MK is
equal to LK.
This is the first recorded mention of the Butterfly theorem. The previous record, according
to [Coxeter and Greitzer] was the 1815 solution by W. G. Horner of Horner's method fame.
Wallace solution appears to predate that of Horner by 10 years. Sir Herschel's letter may - in
all likelihood - serve as the original source of the problem.
What follows is the original solution by William Wallace as was recently published in
the Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics:
Through L draw PQ parallel to GE, meeting KF in P and KH in Q.
Because of the parallels the angle HQP is equal to HGE, but HGE is equal to HFE, or to HFP,
for they are in the same segment, therefore the angles HQP, HFP are equal, and hence the
points H, Q, F, P are in the circumference of a circle, wherefore PL LQ = FL LH.
The triangles KEG, KPQ are similar and their sides EG, PQ are similarly divided by the lines
KM, KL, which lines are to each other as EM to PL, and as MG to LQ, therefore
KM : EM MG :: KL : PL LQ, or FL LH;
and by composition, &c. KM : KM + CM MD :: KL : KL + CL LD.
But KM + CM MD = CK and KL + CL LD = KD.
Therefore KM : CK :: KL : KD, and KM : CK :: KL : KD.
But CD being perpendicular to the diameter, KC is equal to KD, therefore KM must also be
equal to KL as was to be demonstrated.
Remark
The above proposition is a particular case of a more general one extending to all the Conic
Sections, which may be expressed thus. If AB is any diameter of a Conic Section, and CD
any right line cutting it in K, and parallel to a tangent at its vertices; also EF and HG two
other lines drawn anyhow through K, to meet the conic section, the one in the points E, F,
and the other in the points G, H, the straight lines EG, FH which join the extremities of
these lines shall intercept upon CD the segments KM, KL which are equal to each other.
W Wallace
Reference
1. H. S. M. Coxeter, S. L. Greitzer, Geometry Revisited, MAA, 1967
2. Alex D D Craik and John J O'Connor, Some unknown documents associated with
William Wallace (1768-1843), BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the
History of Mathematics, 26:1, 17-28

You might also like