It is easy to see that a circumconic for T* has an equation of the
form pyz+qzx+rxy=0, which is non-degenerate
provided that pqr is non-zero.
Definition
If AA',BB' and CC' meet in a point P, then we
say that the triangles ΔABC and ΔA'B'C' are in perspective from P.
We
refer to P as the perspector of the triangles.
Desargue's Theorem
If triangles T = ΔABC and
T' = ΔA'B'C' are in perspective from a point, then the intersections of
AB,A'B', of BC,B'C'
and of CA,C'A' are collinear.
We refer to the line of intersections as the perspectrix of the triangles.
Theorem 1
If C is a circumconic of triangle
T = ΔABC, then the tangents to C at A,B,C from a triangle in
perpsective with T.
If T = T* and C:
pyz+qzx+rxy=0, then the perspector is [p,q,r], and the perspectrix is
x/p+y/q+r/z=0.
We give a proof later.
In general, we refer to the perspector of T and its tangential
triangle as the C(T)-perspector. For T*, we refer
to it simply
as the C-perspector.
We often use duality with respect to the fixed conic D:
x2+y2+z2 = 0. Although this has no real points,
it is
non-degenerate as a complex conic.
Duality with respect to
D associates the point [u,v,w] with the line ux+vy+wz=0. Note that if the
point is real,
so is the line. Also, the reference points X,Y,Z correspond
to the lines x=0, y=0, z=0, the reference
triangle T* is
self-dual.
Since D has matrix I, earlier results show that, if a conic
C has matrix M, then its D-dual has matrix M-1.
Again, if C is real, so is its dual.
As a first application we note that the D-dual of an inconic of
T is a circumconic of the dual triangle, and the
contact triangle for
T corresponds to the tangential triangle for the dual. Theorem 1 shows
that the latter
pair are in perspective. Duality shows that the perspectrix
corresponds to a perspector for T and its contact
triangle. Thus we
have
Theorem 2
If triangle T has inconic I,
then T and the triangle with vertices at the contacts of T with
C are in perspective.
As before, we talk of the I(T)- and I-perspectors. We can get
results for coordinates from the rest of Theorem 1.
The reference triangle
T* is self-dual, so if the inconic I corresponds to the
circumconic C : pyz+qzx+rxy = 0,
then the I-perspector is
[1/p,1/q,1/r]. Using the matrix for C, we get an equation for I
namely
We summarise some results on poles and polars of conics as follows
:
Suppose that a conic C has matrix M. Then
(1) the polar of the
point U= [u] = [u,v,w] is the line xTMu =
0,
(2) the pole of the line L : ux+vy+wz = 0 is the point
M-1u.
If C is the circumconic pyz+qzx+rxy = 0 and U = [u,v,w], then (1)
allows us to write the tangent to C at U as
Proof of Theorem 1
For the reference triangle and the
given conic, the tangents Y*, Z* meet at X** = [-p,q,r].
The
line XX** has equation ry-qz = 0. This passes through P = [p,q,r]. By algebraic
symmetry, P is also on
the lines YY** and ZZ**. The general case follows
since we can apply a projective transformation to map the
vertices of any
triangle to X,Y,Z.