Projective plane (${\mathbb{P}}^2$)

The projective plane is the two-dimensional projective space ${\mathbb{P}}^2$.

For two triples of distinct points on two projective lines, the intersections $r_{ij}=p_i{q}_j\cap p_j{q}_i$ are collinear when the configuration is defined. Normalize a projective frame so $p_1=[0,1,0]$, $p_2=[1,1,0]$, $q_1=[0,0,1]$, $q_2=[1,0,1]$, and write $p_3=[1,\alpha ,0]$, $q_3=[1,0,\beta ]$. Then representatives of the three intersections are $(1,1,1)$, $(1,\alpha ,\beta )$, and $(\alpha \beta -1,\alpha (\beta -1),\beta (\alpha -1))$. The last is $\alpha \beta$ times the first minus the second, proving collinearity by linear dependence. This gives a coordinate proof over any field when the normalizations are available.

In the real projective plane, represent a projective point by a nonzero vector and a projective line by its nonzero coefficient covector, identified with a vector in chosen coordinates. The join of distinct projective points represented by $p,q$ has coefficient vector $p\times q$, using the cross product. It is nonzero because the representatives are linearly independent, and its dot product with each representative vanishes. Dually, two distinct projective lines with coefficients $\ell ,m$ meet in the projective point represented by $\ell \times m$. Scaling an input scales the output and leaves the projective object unchanged. This makes joins, intersections, concurrency, and collinearity exact calculations with homogeneous coordinates.

For two projective triangles in a projective plane over a field, perspectivity from a point implies perspectivity from a line. The usual nondegenerate form assumes that the corresponding-side intersections are well defined and distinct. Its dual is the converse, by point-line duality. The result holds in the real projective plane; it is not an axiom valid in every abstract incidence plane.

One linear algebra proof explains the collinearity. Choose a representative $o$ of the center. Rescale the paired representatives to $p^{\prime }=p+\alpha o$, $q^{\prime }=q+\beta o$, and $r^{\prime }=r+\gamma o$, with nonzero coefficients in a nondegenerate configuration whose vertices differ from the center. The first corresponding-side intersection is represented by $x=\beta p-\alpha q=\beta p^{\prime }-\alpha q^{\prime }$. Similarly choose $y=\gamma q-\beta r$ and $z=\alpha r-\gamma p$. Then $\gamma x+\alpha y+\beta z=0$, so the three representatives are linearly dependent. Their projective points are consequently collinear.

Two projective triangles are in perspectivity from a line when the three intersections of corresponding sides lie on one projective line, called their axis of perspectivity. In the nondegenerate setting this is dual to perspectivity from a point under point-line duality.

Two projective triangles are in perspectivity from a point when the three projective lines joining corresponding vertices meet in one projective point, called their center of perspectivity.

A projective triangle is an ordered triple of noncollinear projective points in a projective plane, together with their three joining projective lines. In the real projective plane this means that three chosen representative vectors are linearly independent. Pairing the vertices of two such triangles determines corresponding sides and the three corresponding-vertex joins.

After choosing the affine chart $z\ne 0$ in the projective plane, its complement $z=0$ is the projective line at infinity. Affine parallel lines meet at the same projective point on this line, corresponding to their common direction. The choice of this line is part of the affine chart, not an intrinsic distinction preserved by every projective transformation.

A complete quadrangle consists of four projective points in the projective plane, no three collinear, and all six joining projective lines. Its three diagonal points are the intersections of opposite joining lines. Over a field of characteristic different from two, the line joining two diagonal points cuts either side through the third diagonal point in a pair of harmonic conjugate points. In a projective frame this follows by using the coordinate points and $[1:1:1]$ and computing the intersections.

A projective conic is the zero locus in a projective plane of a nonzero homogeneous degree-two polynomial. The equation is considered up to multiplication by a nonzero scalar. Over the complex numbers, a symmetric matrix for the quadratic form has rank three, two, or one: these give a nonsingular conic, two distinct projective lines, or one line counted twice. Diagonalization of a quadratic form and rescaling its nonzero diagonal entries prove this classification. The smooth model $XZ-Y^2=0$ is parametrized by the degree-two Veronese map $[s:t]\mapsto [s^2:st:t^2]$.

Four projective points in general linear position in the complex projective plane impose four independent linear conditions on the six coefficients of a quadratic polynomial. To see independence, put them at the three coordinate points and $[1:1:1]$ using a projective frame. The remaining equations are $Axy+Bxz+Cyz=0$ with $A+B+C=0$, a two-dimensional vector space. Projectivizing its nonzero elements gives a pencil. It has nonsingular bases, for example the forms with coefficient triples $(1,1,-2)$ and $(1,-2,1)$, because the determinant of the symmetric coefficient matrix is $ABC/4$. Its three singular members are exactly the three pairs of lines obtained by partitioning the four base points into two pairs.

A point $[a:b:c]$ of the projective plane corresponds to the dual line $aX+bY+cZ=0$. A line given by those coefficients corresponds back to the point $[a:b:c]$. Incidence is reversed: $p\in \ell$ if and only if ${\ell }^{\ast }\in p^{\ast }$. Thus collinear point triples become concurrent line triples, preserving the essential combinatorics of incidence geometry.

Dualize a noncollinear finite point set in the real projective plane to projective lines. Their intersection vertices and consecutive line segments form an embedded graph. A vertex incident to $k$ lines has graph degree $2k$ and corresponds to a primal line containing $k$ points. Ordinary lines correspond to degree-four vertices. The faces are polygons with at least three sides.

A good dual-arrangement edge has degree-six endpoints and two triangular adjacent faces. Other edges are bad. The Euler defect identity for a projective line arrangement bounds the number of bad edges by $16t_2$: charge them to degree-four or higher-degree vertices and to nontriangular faces. This turns a count of ordinary lines into quantitative control of local triangular geometry.

A safe dual-arrangement edge is one for which every edge on a path of length at most two from either endpoint is a good dual-arrangement edge. This stronger local condition supplies a two-cell-thick triangular strip. Only a bounded multiple of the original bad edges can be unsafe: trace a shortest path to the first bad edge and reverse it through degree-six intermediate vertices.

In an embedded arrangement graph, an edge whose fixed-radius neighbourhood meets a bad edge can be charged to the first such edge along a shortest path. All intervening edges are good dual-arrangement edges, so their endpoints have bounded degree. The number of possible reversed paths is bounded in terms of the fixed radius alone. Therefore thickening a defect set by a fixed radius preserves an $O(t_2)$ edge count.

Let $t_k$ count vertices where $k$ lines meet and $f_j$ count faces with $j$ sides in a nonpencil projective line arrangement. Using Euler characteristic one, $v=\sum t_k$, $e=\sum k{t}_k$, and $2e=\sum j{f}_j$ gives $t_2=3+{\sum }_{k\ge 4}(k-3)t_k+{\sum }_{j\ge 4}(j-3)f_j$. Thus few double vertices control both high-multiplicity vertices and nontriangular faces. Discarding the face term gives the usual arrangement form of the ordinary-line inequality.

The Fano plane is the projective plane over the finite field ${\mathbb{F}}_2$. It has seven points and seven lines, each line contains three points, and two distinct lines meet in one point. A line-point incidence matrix $N$ therefore satisfies $N{N}^{\mathsf{T}}=2I+J$, making it invertible over the real numbers and useful for the transplantation theorem.

Adjoin the inverse-transpose automorphism to the collineation group of the Fano plane. Its maximal subgroups other than the collineation group are unordered incident-pair stabilizers, unordered nonincident-pair stabilizers and Sylow 7-normalizers, of orders 16, 12 and 42.

There are 21 incident point-line pairs and 28 nonincident pairs in the Fano plane, with $G{L}_3(2)$ transitive on each type. Orbit-stabilizer theorem gives the two orders as $168/21=8$ and $168/28=6$.