Poincaré's ``fourth geometry'' (Q457067)

In 1887, Poincaré wrote a paper on the hypotheses on which geometry is based. In the paper, he studied geometries that can be modeled on quadratic surfaces. Riemannian geometry can be modeled on the sphere, Euclidian geometry on an elliptic paraboloid and Lobachevski's geometry on a hyperboloid consisting of two sheets. He calls the geometry that corresponds to a hyperboloid of one sheet the ``fourth geometry''. It is in fact a De Sitter geometry. According to the author, Poincaré mentioned this fourth geometry only because he wanted to make a philosophical point on assumptions that are not made explicit in geometrical reasoning. According to the author, this is also the reason why in his paper Poincaré did not mention the geometry corresponding to a hyperbolic paraboloid, which is a Minkowski geometry.