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ON THE NON-EUCLIDIAN PLANE GEOMETRY.
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the space, that is, which we become acquainted with by experience, but which is the
representation lying at the foundation of all physical experience.
3. I propose in the present paper to develope further the geometry of the
pseudosphere. In regard to the name, and the subject generally, I refer to two
memoirs by Beltrami, “ Teoria fondamentale degli spazii di curvatura costante,” Annali
di Matem., t. n. (1868—69), pp. 232—255, and “ Saggio di interpretazione della geometria
non-Euclidea,” Battaglini, Giorn. di Matem., t. VI. (1868), pp. 284—312, both translated,
Ann. de VÉcole Normale, t. vi. (1869) ; in the last of these, he speaks of surfaces of
constant negative curvature as “ pseudospherical,” and in a later paper, “ Sulla superficie
di rotazione che serve di tipo aile superficie pseudosferiche,” Battaglini, Giorn. di Matem.,
t. x. (1872), pp. 147—160, he treats of the particular surface which I have called the
pseudosphere. The surface is mentioned, Note iv. of Liouville’s edition of Monge’s
Application de VAnalyse à la Géométrie (1850), and the generating curve is there
spoken of as “ bien connue des géomètres.”
4. In ordinary plane geometry, take (fig. 1) a line Bx, and on it a point B
from B, in any direction, draw the line BA ; take upon it a point A, and from
Fig. l.
A
this point, at right angles to Bx, draw Ay, cutting it at C. We have thus a triangle
ACB, right-angled at C; and we may denote the other angles, and the lengths of the
sides, by A, B, c, a, b, respectively. In the construction of the figure, the length c and
the angle B are arbitrary.
The plane is a surface which is homogeneous, isotropic, and palintropic, that is,
whatever be the position of B, the direction of Bx, and the sense in which the angle
B is measured, we have the same expressions for a, b as functions of c, B; these
expressions, of course, are
a = c cos B, b = c sin B.
But considering Ay as the initial line and AB, =c, as a line drawn from A at an
inclination thereto =A, we have in like manner
b = c cos A, a = c sin .4,
and consequently cos A = sin B, sin A = cos B; whence sin (A 4- B) = 1, cos (A + B) = 0, and
thence A + B = a right angle, or A + B + G = two right angles.