Möbius plane
In mathematics, a Möbius plane (named after August Ferdinand Möbius) is one of the Benz planes: Möbius plane, Laguerre plane and Minkowski plane. The classical example is based on the geometry of lines and circles in the real affine plane.
A second name for Möbius plane is inversive plane. It is due to the existence of inversions in the classical Möbius plane. An inversion is an involutory mapping which leaves the points of a circle or line fixed (see below).
Affine planes are systems of points and lines that satisfy, amongst others, the property that two points determine exactly one line. This concept can be generalized to systems of points and circles, with each circle being determined by three non-collinear points. However, three collinear points determine a line, not a circle. This drawback can be removed by adding a point at infinity to every line. If we call both circles and such completed lines cycles, we get an incidence structure in which every three points determine exactly one cycle.
In an affine plane the parallel relation between lines is essential. In the geometry of cycles, this relation is generalized to the touching relation. Two cycles touch each other if they have just one point in common. This is true for two tangent circles or a line that is tangent to a circle. Two completed lines touch if they have only the point at infinity in common, so they are parallel. The touching relation has the property
These properties essentially define an axiomatic Möbius plane. But the classical Möbius plane is not the only geometrical structure that satisfies the properties of an axiomatic Möbius plane. A simple further example of a Möbius plane can be achieved if one replaces the real numbers by rational numbers. The usage of complex numbers (instead of the real numbers) does not lead to a Möbius plane, because in the complex affine plane the curve is not a circle-like curve, but a hyperbola-like one. Fortunately there are a lot of fields (numbers) together with suitable quadratic forms that lead to Möbius planes (see below). Such examples are called miquelian, because they fulfill Miquel's theorem. All these miquelian Möbius planes can be described by space models. The classical real Möbius plane can be considered as the geometry of circles on the unit sphere. The essential advantage of the space model is that any cycle is just a circle (on the sphere).
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