Scribd
Upload
5 views11 pages

Lecture 4

The document outlines the construction of geometries as axiom systems, starting with primitive terms and progressing through incidence geometry, universal geometry, and finally Euclidean geometry. It introduces a toy example called Fe-Fo to illustrate how theorems can be proven from seemingly nonsensical axioms. Additionally, it presents axioms and theorems related to incidence geometry, emphasizing the relationships between points and lines.

Uploaded by

petrus Tiger jan10
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5 views11 pages

Lecture 4

The document outlines the construction of geometries as axiom systems, starting with primitive terms and progressing through incidence geometry, universal geometry, and finally Euclidean geometry. It introduces a toy example called Fe-Fo to illustrate how theorems can be proven from seemingly nonsensical axioms. Additionally, it presents axioms and theorems related to incidence geometry, emphasizing the relationships between points and lines.

Uploaded by

petrus Tiger jan10
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 11

The geometries we are going to construct are examples of axiom

systems. These consist of:


primitive or undefined terms
definitions, introducing terms by means of primitive terms or
of already defined terms
axioms, statements assumed as true
theorems, statements proved logically by means of the axioms
and/or previously proven theorems
So we won’t do as Euclid trying to define points and lines, but we
will take then as undefined terms.
We will develop Euclidean geometry through three steps
incidence geometry
universal or neutral geometry
Euclidean geometry
We move from top to bottom by adding new axioms. Incidence
geometry has few axioms and so is very simple and essential.
Universal or neutral refers to be neutral with respect to the parallel
postulate, and so universal, in the sense of broad. Euclidean
geometry is obtained by adding the parallel postulate as a last step.
In Cohen’s notes there is a simple toy example of axiom system,
called Fe-Fo (the names are voluntarily silly and non-sense, to
stress the fact that there is no need to define everything and that
things work also with undefined, non-sense, terms):
primitive terms: Fe, Fo, belongs to
Axiom 1: there exist exactly three distinct Fe’s
Axiom 2: any two distinct Fe’s belong exactly to one Fo
Axiom 3: not all Fe’s belong to the same Fo
Axiom 4: any two distinct Fo’s contain at least one Fe that
belongs to both
Despite everything looks nonsense, we can prove theorems.
Theorem
For every two distinct Fo’s X and Y , there exists a unique Fe
which belongs to both X and Y .

Proof.
By axiom 4, there is at least a Fe, which we denote by a, which
belongs to both X and Y , so, what remains to prove is that such a
is unique. Suppose there are two such Fe’s, a and b: by axiom 2, a
and b belong to exactly one Fo; we know, however, they belong to
both the Fo’s X and Y , which are distinct; we have reached a
contradiction, therefore, there exists only one such Fe.
Incidence geometry is a very scant and basic geometry, with few
primitive terms and axioms. Observe that we just deal with plane
incidence geometry.

PRIMITIVE TERMS
point
line
lies on
DEFINITIONS
A point P is incident to ` or P belongs to ` or ` is incident to
P or ` contains P if P lies on `.
Two lines intersect or meet if there is a point lying on both
lines.
Two lines are parallel if they don’t meet.
A collection of points is collinear if there exists a line
containing them, non collinear otherwise.
AXIOMS
Axiom 1: there exist at least three distinct non collinear
points.
Axiom 2: for every two points there exists exactly one line
incident to both of them.
Axiom 3: every line is incident to at least two distinct points.
Since, contrary to Euclid, we can use sets (that this, the axiom
system of sets, with its primitive terms, definitions, axioms and
theorems there), we can proceed as follows:
we assign a set Π of points, a set ∆ of subsets of Π, whose
element are called line (that is, lines are sets of points), the
relation lies on is the set-theoretical relation belongs to.
We can now prove a few theorems.
Theorem
Two distinct lines are incident to at most one common point.

Proof.
If they are incident to more than a point, then this would
contradict axiom 2.
Theorem
For every point, there exist two distinct lines containing it.

Proof.
Let A be a point. By axiom 1 there are three points B, C and D
which are not collinear.
Suppose that A is among these points, say, A = B. By axiom 2,
←→ ←→
there are lines AC and AD; they are distinct, in fact, if they
coincide then this would contradict the non collinearity of B, C
and D.
Suppose now that A is not among B, C and D. By axiom 2 there
←→ ← → ←→
are lines AB, AC and AD. If they are distinct, then we have found
at least two distinct lines containing A. If not, only two of them
coincide, otherwise, B, C and D would be collinear.
Theorem
For every point there exist at least two other points distinct from it.

Proof.
Let A be such point. By axiom 1 there are at least three distinct
non collinear points. Either if A is one of them or not, we have at
least two distinct point beside than A.
Theorem
For every point, there is a line not containing that point.

Proof.
Let A be a point. By axiom 1, there are three distinct non collinear
points B, C and D.
Suppose A is one of such points, say A = B. By axiom 2, there is
←→
a line CD which is incident to both C and D. Such line can’t
contain A, otherwise it would make B, C and D collinear.
Suppose now A is not among B, C and D. By axiom 2, there are
←→ ← → ←→
lines BC , BD and CD. If one of such lines doesn’t contain A, the
←→ ← →
theorem follows. If two of them, say, BC , BD, contain A, then the
←→ ←→
third CD does not. In fact, if A is incident to CD, then by axiom
←→ ←→
2, the lines CD and BD coincide (they both contain A and D),
and so B, C and D wouldn’t be collinear.

You might also like