Projective geometry | EPFL Graph Search

In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant with respect to projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary Euclidean geometry, projective geometry has a different setting, projective space, and a selective set of basic geometric concepts. The basic intuitions are that projective space has more points than Euclidean space, for a given dimension, and that geometric transformations are permitted that transform the extra points (called "points at infinity") to Euclidean points, and vice-versa. Properties meaningful for projective geometry are respected by this new idea of transformation, which is more radical in its effects than can be expressed by a transformation matrix and translations (the affine transformations). The first issue for geometers is what kind of geometry is adequate for a novel situation. It is not possible to refer to angles in projective geometry as it is in Euclidean geometry, because angle is an example of a concept not invariant with respect to projective transformations, as is seen in perspective drawing. One source for projective geometry was indeed the theory of perspective. Another difference from elementary geometry is the way in which parallel lines can be said to meet in a point at infinity, once the concept is translated into projective geometry's terms. Again this notion has an intuitive basis, such as railway tracks meeting at the horizon in a perspective drawing. See projective plane for the basics of projective geometry in two dimensions. While the ideas were available earlier, projective geometry was mainly a development of the 19th century. This included the theory of complex projective space, the coordinates used (homogeneous coordinates) being complex numbers. Several major types of more abstract mathematics (including invariant theory, the Italian school of algebraic geometry, and Felix Klein's Erlangen programme resulting in the study of the classical groups) were motivated by projective geometry.

On some algebraic and extremal problems in discrete geometry

Seyed Hossein Nassajianmojarrad

In the present thesis, we delve into different extremal and algebraic problems arising from combinatorial geometry. Specifically, we consider the following problems. For any integer

n\ge 3

, we define

e(n)

to be the minimum positive integer such that any set of

e(n)

points in general position in the plane contains

n

points in convex position. In 1935, Erd\H{o}s and Szekeres proved that

e(n) \le {2n-4 \choose n-2}+1

and later in 1961, they obtained the lower bound

2^{n-2}+1 \le e(n)

, which they conjectured to be optimal. We prove that

e(n) \le {2n-5 \choose n-2}-{2n-8 \choose n-3}+2

. In a recent breakthrough, Suk proved that

e(n) \le 2^{n+O\left(n^{2/3}\log n\right)}

. We strengthen this result by extending it to pseudo-configurations and also improving the error term. Combining our results with a theorem of Dobbins et al., we significantly improve the best known upper bounds on the following two functions, introduced by Bisztriczky and Fejes T'{o}th and by Pach and T'{o}th, respectively. Let

c(n)

(and

c'(n)

) denote the smallest positive integer

N

such that any family of

N

pairwise disjoint convex bodies in general position (resp.,

N

convex bodies in general position, any pair of which share at most two boundary points) has an

n

members in convex position. We show that

c(n)\le c'(n)\le 2^{n+O\left(\sqrt{n\log n}\right)}

. Given a point set

P

in the plane, an ordinary circle for

P

is defined as a circle containing exactly three points of

P

. We prove that any set of

n

points in the plane, not all on a line or a circle, determines at least

\frac{1}{4}n^2-O(n)

ordinary circles. We determine the exact minimum number of ordinary circles for all sufficiently large

n

, and characterize all point sets that come close to this minimum. We also consider the orchard problem for circles, where we determine the maximum number of circles containing four points of a given set and describe the extremal configurations. A special case of the Schwartz-Zippel lemma states that given an algebraic curve

C\subset \mathbb{C}^2

of degree

d

and two finite sets

A,B\subset \mathbb{C}

, we have

|C\cap (A\times B)|=O_d(|A|+|B|)

. We establish a two-dimensional version of this result, and prove upper bounds on the size of the intersection

|X\cap (P\times Q)|

for a variety

X\subset \mathbb{C}^4

and finite sets

P,Q\subset \mathbb{C}^2

. A key ingredient in our proofs is a two-dimensional version of a special case of Alon's combinatorial Nullstellensatz. As corollaries, we generalize the Szemer'edi-Trotter point-line incidence theorem and several known bounds on repeated and distinct Euclidean distances. We use incidence geometry to prove some sum-product bounds over arbitrary fields. First, we give an explicit exponent and improve a recent result of Bukh and Tsimerman by proving that

\max \{ |A+A|, |f(A, A)|\}\gg |A|^{6/5}

for any small set

A\subset \mathbb{F}_p

and quadratic non-degenerate polynomial

f(x, y)\in \mathbb{F}_p[x, y]

. This generalizes the result of Roche-Newton et al. giving the best known lower bound for the term

\max \{ |A+A|, |A \cdot A |\}

. Secondly, we improve and generalize the sum-product results of Hegyv'{a}ri and Hennecart on

\max\{ |A+B|, |f(B,C)|\}

, for a specific type of function

f

. Finally, we prove that the number of distinct cubic distances generated by any small set

A\times A\subset \mathbb{F}_p^2

\Omega(|A|^{8/7})

, which improves a result of Yazici et al.

EPFL2017