If two smooth plane conics over meet at four distinct points, their tangent incidence curve is a smooth projective genus one curve. Projection to is a double cover branched at those four intersections. The tangent equation becomes a quadratic whose discriminant cuts out ; its four simple zeros make the cover smooth and connected. The Riemann-Hurwitz formula then gives genus one.
For two smooth plane conics meeting transversely, the operation of crossing a chord of the second conic tangent to the first and choosing the other tangent through the new endpoint acts as a translation on an elliptic curve on their incidence curve. Each switch is an involution of a degree-two map from a genus one curve. One periodic orbit means that the translating point is torsion, so every orbit is periodic with the same least period. The construction extends through coincident choices at ramification points using the regular involutions.

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