Iterated point-line configurations grow doubly-exponentially (Q2380786)

Begin with four points of the real affine plane in general position. Add to this collection the intersection points of all lines joining two different of the four starting points. Iterate this process. A natural question is: How many points are present at the \(k\)-th stage? (Stage 1 begins with the empty affine plane and ends with four points and six lines.) Stage \(k\) ends with \(n_k\) points determining \(m_k\) lines. The main result of the paper says: There exist real positive constants \(c_1\) and \(c_2\) such that \[ c_{1}4^{1.0488^k}\leq\,n_k\leq\,c_{2}4^{4^k} \] for all \(k\in{\mathbb N}\). Thus the growth of \(n_k\) is doubly exponential.