Lecture 26.

Early Stage of Projective

Geometry

Figure 26.1 The woodcut book The Designer of the Lute illustrates how
one uses projection to represent a solid object on a two dimensional canvas.

Projective geometry was rst systematically developed by Desargues 1 in the 17th century
based upon the principles of perspective art. As a mathematical eld, however, projective
geometry was established by the work of Poncelet 2 and others.
Projective geometry is a branch of mathematics which deals with the properties and
invariants of geometric gures under projection. One source for projective geometry was
indeed the theory of perspective. One dierence from elementary geometry is the way in
which parallel lines can be said to meet in a point at innity.
1
Girard Desargues (1591-1661) was a French mathematician and engineer, one of the founders of projective geometry.
2
Jean-Victor Poncelet (1788 - 1867) was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably
as the commandant general of the Ecole Polytechnique. He is considered a reviver of projective geometry.

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The theory of perspective The theory of perspective describes how to project a threedimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface, i.e., perspective may be simply described
as the realistic representation of real scenes on a plane. This has been an interesting problem
for most painters since ancient times. Even though some Roman artists seem to have
achieved correct perspective about 100 B.C. However, it was simply an individual genius
rather than the success of a theory. The vast majority of ancient paintings, in fact, show
incorrect perspective.
Medieval artists made some charming attempts at perspective but always got it wrong,
and errors persisted well into the fteenth century.

Figure 26.2 False perspective.

During the Renaissance, scientists and scholars began engaging in dierent kinds of
experiments. Some artists conducted careful observations of nature and even anatomical
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dissections to try to better understand the world around them. But it wasnt until the
early 15th Century that a Florentine architect and engineer named Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446) developed a mathematical theory of perspective through a series of optical
experiments. Brunelleschi was able to understand the science behind perspective.
The basic principles Renaissance artists used were the following:
A straight line in perspective remains straight.
Parallel lines either remain parallel or converge to a single point (vanishing point).
These principles suces to solve a problem artists frequently encountered: the perspective depiction of a square-tiled oor.

Figure 26.3

Parallel lines converge to a single point (vanishing point).

Desargues Theorem Mathematical setting on perspective is the family of lines (light

rays) through a point (the eye). In this setting, the problems of perspective became
relatively easy, but the concepts were a challenge to traditional geometric thought. Dierent
from Euclid, one had the following:
(i) Points at innity (vanishing point) where parallels met.
(ii) Transformations that changed lengths and angles (projective).
Projective geometry originated through the eorts of a French artist and mathematician,
Gerard Desargues (1591-1661), as an alternative way of constructing perspective drawings,
although the idea of points at innity had already been used by Kepler(1604).

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Desargues published a book in 1639, but only one copy of this book is now known to
survive, which was rediscovered in 1951. His two most important theorems, the so-called
Desargues theorem and the invariance of the cross-ratio, were published in a book about
perspective by Bosse (1648).

Figure 26.4

Desargues theorem

Desargues theorem is a property of triangles in perspective illustrated by Figure 26.4.

The theorem states that the points , and at the intersections of corresponding sides
lie in a line. This is obvious if the triangles are in space, since the line is the intersection of
the planes containing them. The theorem in the plane is subtly but fundamentally dierent
and requires a separate proof, as Desargues realized. In fact, Desargues theorem was shown
to play a key role in the foundations of projective geometry by Hilbert (1899).
Pascal Theorem Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a very inuential French mathematician
and philosopher who contributed to many areas of mathematics. He worked on conic sections
and projective geometry and in correspondence with Fermat he laid the foundations for the
theory of probability.
When he was 12 years old, Pascal, gaving up his play-time to this new study, began to
read a geometry book. In a few weeks, he had discovered for himself many properties of
gures, including that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to .
His father, struck by this display of ability, gave him a copy of Euclids Elements. Before
Pascal turned 13 he had proved the 32nd proposition of Euclid and discovered an error in
Descartes Geometry.
At 16, Pascal began preparing to study entire eld of mathematics. Desarguess study
on conic sections drew his attention and helped him formulate Pascals theorem. Pascals
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Essay on Conics was written in late 1639, who probably had heard about projective geometry
from his father, who was a friend of Desargues. The Essay contained the rst statement of
a famous result that became known as Pascals theorem, which is the dual of Brianchons
theorem. It states that, given a (not necessarily regular, or even convex) hexagon inscribed
in a conic section, the three pairs of the continuations of opposite sides meet on a straight
line, called the Pascal line.

Figure 26.5

Pascal and Pascals theorem

Projective geometry was further developed in 18th century (Gaspard Monge, Jean-Victor
Poncelet), 19th century (Julius Placker, Steiner, Clebsch, Riemann, Max Noether, Enriques,
Segre, Severi, Schubert), and etc.
Riemann sphere The projective geometry has been continuously developing. One of the
basic notions is Riemann sphere one dimensional complex projective space.
Let be the unit sphere
= {(1 , 2 , 3 ) 3 (1 )2 + (2 )2 + (3 )2 = 1}.
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If we regard as the earth, then the point {(0, 0, 1)} can be regarded as the north pole of
the sphere. We dene a map
{(0, 0, 1)}

7
where is the intersection point of the plane and the the straight line passing through
the north pole (0, 0, 1) and the point .

Figure 26.6 Riemann sphere

This map is one-to-one and onto. We call the Riemann sphere, and the map Stereographic projection.
Notice that as moves to , the corresponding moves to the north pole. Then we
may write the north pole = {}. We can denote = ( { }) { } as
= {}.

(1)

In the Riemann sphere, the innite is just a point in . We can treat , as any other
point in the complex space , as an ordinary point in .
For example, in Calculus, the denitions of lim = and lim = +
are quite dierent. Passing everything in the Riemann sphere , lim = and
lim = should have the same denition.

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