Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:09:56.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The triangle as a geometric variable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

J. G. Semple
Affiliation:
King's College, London
Get access

Extract

Among Schubert's many experiments in the application of a symbolic calculus to problems of enumerative geometry, some special attention is due to his long memoir entitled “Anzahlgeometrische Behandlung des Dreiecks” [1]. For one thing, he is dealing here with a simple, though not elementary, kind of geometric variable, the triangle in a fixed plane, so that the paper gives a clear insight into his general method; and, for another, there is contained in this paper, as was recently suggested by Freudenthal ([2], p. 19), an apparently miraculous device, the introduction of “infinitesimal triangles”, which we can now recognize (§4) as having had the effect of desingularizing the triangle domain in which the calculus was to operate. The principal target of Schubert's investigations was the discovery of Bézout-type formulae for the number of triangles common to two algebraic systems Σr and Σ6-r (r = 1, 2, 3) of complementary dimensions, the systems being supposed to intersect in only a finite number of triangles, and the multiplicities of these triangles being assumed to be suitably defined. His systems, also, had to be “normal” i.e. they could only contain such sub-systems of degenerate triangles as were of the dimensions he regarded as normal. He found, by his methods, that “normal” system Σ1 and Σ5 are each characterized (in so far as intersection numbers are concerned) by 7 projective characters, systems Σ2 and Σ4 by 17 such characters, and systems Σ3 by 22 such characters.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University College London 1954

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Schubert, H., “Anzahlgeometrische Behandlung des Dreiecks”, Math. Ann. 17 (1880) 153212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Freudenthal, H., “La géométrie énumérative”, Coll. de topologie algébrique, Liége (1950), 1733.Google Scholar
3.Waerden, B. L. van der, “Birational invariants of algebraic manifolds”, Acta Salmanticensia, II (1947), 156.Google Scholar
4-5.Waerden, B. L. van der, “Zur algebraischen Geometrie”, XIV, XV, Math. Ann., 115 (1938), 619642 and 645–655.Google Scholar
6.Hodge, W. V. D. and Pedoe, D., Methods of algebraic geometry, Vol. II (Cambridge, 1952).Google Scholar
7.Segre, B., “Sullo scioglimento delle singolarità delle varietà algebriche”, Ann. di mat. (4), 33 (1952), 548.Google Scholar