Elementary surprises in projective geometry

DOI10.1007/S00283-010-9137-8MaRDI QIDQ608931zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Richard Evan Schwartz, S. Tabachnikov

Publication date 29 November 2010

Published in The Mathematical Intelligencer (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1952

zbMATH Keywords

circumscribed polygoninscribed polygonpentagram map

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Polyhedra and polytopes; regular figures, division of spaces (51M20) Descriptive geometry (educational aspects) (97G80)

Abstract: We discuss eight new(?) configuration theorems of classical projective geometry in the spirit of the Pappus and Pascal theorems.

Review text

For a closed polygon \(P = \{p_1,\dots,p_n\}\) in the real projective plane, \(T_k(P)\) denotes the dual polygon \(\{\overline{p_1p_{k+1}},\dots,\overline{p_np_{k+n}}\}\) whose vertices are the consecutive \(k\)-diagonals of \(P\). The article is an easily accessible introduction to some results pertaining to the map \(T_k\) and inscribed/circumscribed polygons (polygons whose vertices lie on a conic or whose sides are tangent to a conic). Denoting projective equivalence by the symbol ``\(\sim\) and concatenation of \(T_a\) and \(T_b\) by \(T_{ab}\) the following hold true: ``If \(P\) is an inscribed \(6\)-gon then \(P \sim T_2(P)\)., ``If \(P\) is an inscribed \(7\)-gon then \(P \sim T_{212}(P)\)., ``If \(P\) is an inscribed \(8\)-gon then \(P \sim T_{21212}(P)\). The authors point out that this is not the beginning of the obvious infinite chain of theorems. Further particular results include: ``If \(P\) is a circumscribed \(9\)-gon, then \(P \sim T_{313}(P)\) or ``If \(P\) is an inscribed \(8\)-gon, then \(T_3(P)\) is circumscribed. The article closes with the question whether these isolated finding are examples of a more general pattern.

Recommendations

• Pentagram Configurations for Pentagons and Hexagons
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Cites work

• Discrete monodromy, pentagrams, and the method of condensation
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 98596 (Why is no real title available?)
• Quasiperiodic motion for the pentagram map
• Self-dual polygons and self-dual curves
• The Pentagram Map is Recurrent
• The pentagram map: a discrete integrable system

Cited in

(19)

• Kasner meets Poncelet
• Fun problems in geometry and beyond
• A baker's dozen of problems
• On the diagonal and inscribed pentagons of a pentagon
• Theorems about quadrilaterals and conics
• Integrable cluster dynamics of directed networks and pentagram maps
• Centers of mass of Poncelet polygons, 200 years after
• Pentagrams, inscribed polygons, and Prym varieties
• Liouville-Arnold integrability of the pentagram map on closed polygons
• The devron property
• The pentagram integrals for Poncelet families
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7376304 (Why is no real title available?)
• Projective Configuration Theorems: Old Wine into New Wineskins
• Properties of inscribed and circumscribed rectangles
• Pentagram spirals
• The algebraic dynamics of the pentagram map
• Projective self-dual polygons in higher dimensions
• Skewers
• When Grünbaum meets Poncelet: infinite classes of movable (n₄) configurations

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