Real projective plane-Cedar Herald Index

In mathematics, the real projective plane is an example of a compact non-orientable two-dimensional manifold; in other words, a one-sided surface. It cannot be embedded in standard three-dimensional space without intersecting itself. It has basic applications to geometry, since the common construction of the real projective plane is as the space of lines in passing through the origin.

The plane is also often described topologically, in terms of a construction based on the Möbius strip: if one could glue the (single) edge of the Möbius strip to itself in the correct direction, one would obtain the projective plane. (This cannot be done in three-dimensional space without the surface intersecting itself.) Equivalently, gluing a disk along the boundary of the Möbius strip gives the projective plane. Topologically, it has Euler characteristic 1, hence a demigenus (non-orientable genus, Euler genus) of 1.

Real projective plane

Since the Möbius strip, in turn, can be constructed from a square by gluing two of its sides together with a half-twist, the real projective plane can thus be represented as a unit square (that is, ) with its sides identified by the following equivalence relations: for

Real projective plane

and

for

as in the leftmost diagram shown here.

Real projective plane

Examples

Projective geometry is not necessarily concerned with curvature and the real projective plane may be twisted up and placed in the Euclidean plane or 3-space in many different ways. Some of the more important examples are described below.

The projective plane cannot be embedded (that is without intersection) in three-dimensional Euclidean space. The proof that the projective plane does not embed in three-dimensional Euclidean space goes like this: Assuming that it does embed, it would bound a compact region in three-dimensional Euclidean space by the generalized Jordan curve theorem. The outward-pointing unit normal vector field would then give an orientation of the boundary manifold, but the boundary manifold would be the projective plane, which is not orientable. This is a contradiction, and so our assumption that it does embed must have been false.

The projective sphere

Consider a sphere, and let the great circles of the sphere be "lines", and let pairs of antipodal points be "points". It is easy to check that this system obeys the axioms required of a projective plane:

any pair of distinct great circles meet at a pair of antipodal points; and

any two distinct pairs of antipodal points lie on a single great circle.

If we identify each point on the sphere with its antipodal point, then we get a representation of the real projective plane in which the "points" of the projective plane really are points. This means that the projective plane is the quotient space of the sphere obtained by partitioning the sphere into equivalence classes under the equivalence relation ~, where x ~ y if y = x or y = −x. This quotient space of the sphere is homeomorphic with the collection of all lines passing through the origin in R3.

The quotient map from the sphere onto the real projective plane is in fact a two sheeted (i.e. two-to-one) covering map. It follows that the fundamental group of the real projective plane is the cyclic group of order 2; i.e., integers modulo 2. One can take the loop AB from the figure above to be the generator.

The projective hemisphere

Because the sphere covers the real projective plane twice, the plane may be represented as a closed hemisphere around whose rim opposite points are similarly identified.

Boy's surface – an immersion

The projective plane can be immersed (local neighbourhoods of the source space do not have self-intersections) in 3-space. Boy's surface is an example of an immersion.

Polyhedral examples must have at least nine faces.

Roman surface

Steiner's Roman surface is a more degenerate map of the projective plane into 3-space, containing a cross-cap.

A polyhedral representation is the tetrahemihexahedron, which has the same general form as Steiner's Roman Surface, shown here.

Hemi polyhedra

Looking in the opposite direction, certain abstract regular polytopes – hemi-cube, hemi-dodecahedron, and hemi-icosahedron – can be constructed as regular figures in the projective plane; see also projective polyhedra.