Linear spaces with few lines (Q5905495)

Let \({\mathcal P}\) be a non-empty set whose elements are called points, and let \({\mathcal L}\) be a non-empty set consisting of subsets of \({\mathcal P}\). The elements of \({\mathcal L}\) are called lines. The pair \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) is said to be a partial linear space (PLS) if the following conditions are satisfied: (i) any two distinct points in \({\mathcal P}\) belong to at most one line in \({\mathcal L}\); (ii) any line in \({\mathcal L}\) contains at least two points of \({\mathcal P}\); (iii) \(|{\mathcal L}|\geq 2\). Points \(P\), \(P'\) of \({\mathcal P}\) are called collinear if there is a line \(\ell\) of \({\mathcal L}\) containing \(P\) and \(P'\). If any two points of \({\mathcal P}\) are collinear, then we say that \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) is a linear space \((LS)\). There is an abundance of examples of linear spaces; projective planes, projective spaces, affine planes, affine spaces, the euclidean plane, the hyperbolic plane, complete graphs, Steiner triple systems, \(2-(v,k,1)\) designs so that scientists in geometry and combinatorics work every day with linear spaces. A \(PLS\) \(({\mathcal P}',{\mathcal L}')\) is said to be embedded in a \(PLS\) \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) if \({\mathcal P}'\subseteq{\mathcal P}\) and \({\mathcal L}'\subseteq{\mathcal L}\). In this work, the author considers \(LS\) with a finite number of points and lines. The number of points is denoted by \(v\) and the number of lines by \(b\). The number \(k_ \ell\) of points on a line \(\ell\) is called the degree of \(\ell\) and the number \({\mathfrak r}_ P\) of lines passing through a point \(P\) is called the degree of \(P\). It is easy to check that any linear space \({\mathcal S}=({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) can be embedded into a projective plane \(P\). However, if \({\mathcal S}\) is not itself a projective plane, then the above projective plane \(P\) is always infinite, even if \({\mathcal S}\) is finite. It is tempting to ask whether a finite linear space can be embedded into a finite projective plane. The Hanani-de Bruijn- Erdős theorem says that: let \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) be a finite linear space with \(v\) points and \(b>1\) lines. Then \(b\geq v\) with equality iff \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) is a projective plane or a linear space on \(v\) points which has a line with \(v-1\) points and all other lines have just two points. This result led to the conjecture that any finite linear space is embeddable into a finite projective plane. One would even like to ask a more precise question: given a finite linear space \({\mathcal S}\), what is the least order of a projective plane \(P\) such that \({\mathcal S}\) is embeddable into \(P\)? The above conjecture is the leitmotiv in the theory of finite linear spaces. Many results related to this conjecture have been proved in the last twenty years. Proving generalizations of known results, methods, and algorithms, this book explores several previously overlooked connections between embeddability and order, degree and other concepts in the theory of linear spaces. From author's introduction: ``It is the main purpose of this paper to study systematically this embedding problem. In particular, we shall collect the old results and present quite a few new ones. We shall, however, also study linear spaces with few lines which have no natural embedding in a projective plane''. Containing over 73 helpful bibliographic references and material not found in standard introductory texts `Linear spaces with few lines' is necessary reading for researchers in combinatorics and geometry, including graduate-level students in mathematics.