GEOMETRIE SFERICA

Frunz Paul Adrian a

4 iulie 2012

Este o form de geometrie non-Euclidiana mai intuitiv dect a a a geometria hiperbolic in privinta gurilor si mai putin intuitiv a a in privinta teoremelor. Marele matematician german Bernhard Riemann este creditat cu observarea ca geometria sferic a poate o alternativa la geometria euclidiana. geometria plan conceptele de baz sunt punctul i In a a s dreapta. Pe o sfer punctele sunt denite sensul uzual. a n Echivalentele liniilor nu sunt denite sensul uzual de linii n drepte, ci sensul celor mai mici drumuri dintre dou puncte, n a numite geodezice. Pe o sfer geodezicele sunt cercuri mari; a alte concepte geometrice sunt denite ca geometria plan, n a dar cu liniile dreapte nlocuite prin cercurile mari. Astfel, geometria sferic unghiurile sunt denite n a ntre doucercuri mari, rezultnd c trigonometria sferic a a a n a unghiurile difer de cele din trigonometria plan multe a a n privinte; de exemplu, suma unghiurilor interioare ale triunghiurilor sferice este mai mare de 1800 .

Geometria sferic este cea mai simpl form de geometrie a a a eliptic, care o linie nu are paralele fat de un punct dat, a n a contrastnd cu geometria euclidian, care o linie are o a a n paralel fat de un punct dat i geometria hiperbolic, care a a s a n o linie are dou paralele i un numr innit de ultraparalele fat s a a de un punct dat. O important geometrie legat de cea sferic este aceea a a a a planului proiectiv real, ind obtinut prin identicarea punctelor diametral opuse pe o sfer. Acesta este un alt tip de a geometrie eliptic. Local, planul proiectiv are toate a proprietile geometriei sferice, dar are proprieti globale at at diferite. particular, este neorientabil sau cu o singur In a suprafat, gen inelul lui Mbius. Conceptele geometriei sferice a pot aplicate i sferelor alungite, cu toate c trebuiesc fcute s a a modicri minore anumitor formule. a Geometria sferic a fost studiat din antichitate de a a matematicienii greci precum Menelaus din Alexandria, care a scris o carte de trigonometrie sferic numita Sphaerica a dezvoltnd teorema lui Menelaus. a

FLATLAND
If you object to calling these great circles straight lines because your 3-dimensional insight allows you to connect points by shorter paths that are not conned to the sphere, then imagine yourself as a tiny being that lives on the sphere and does not project outside the sphere at all. Before trying to imagine this, you might think about Flatland, a 2-dimensional world described in the classic book, Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions, written by Edwin Abbott Abbott in 1884. Abbott was one of the leading scholars and theologians of the Victorian era, and is best known for his Shakespearian Grammar and his biography of Francis Bacon. The world of Flatland is a plane inhabited by gures such as squares, triangles, and circles, whose motion and sight is completely restricted to this plane.

POSTULATES
It is quite dicult to set up this spherical geometry as a formal axiom system. Of Euclids ve postulates, two (numbers 2 and 5) must be changed drastically, two (the rst and third) must be changed slightly, and one (the fourth) remains the same. The substitute for 1 is: Two points lie on a unique straight line unless those points are antipodal, in which case they lie on many straight lines. Here we have introduced the word antipodal for points on a sphere that are directly opposite from one another. Each point has a single antipodal point. Spherelanders would not have the perspective to see points as directly opposite, and so they might just note that for every point there seems to be exactly one other point to which it is connected by more than one straight line, and give that point a name such as antipodal.

In Figure 2.50a, points P and P are antipodal, and we

Figure : .

have pictured three straight lines passing through them; one is the equator, one is the circle that denes our drawing, and one is the great circle passing through Q and R. Only one straight line passes through Q and R, the indicated great circle. If we want to talk about line segments between Q and R, we should consider the short portion of the great circle that connects them, not the long portion that goes around the back of the sphere. This is one of the messy parts of axiomatizing.

PROPOSITIONS
We have seen that some of the propositions of Euclidean geometry, such as 1800 in triangles, and the existence of lines that are everywhere equidistant, are almost true in spherical geometry when viewed on a small enough scale. Some other propositions of Euclidean geometry are actually true for small gures but false for large ones. For example, Proposition 1 should be replaced by something
Figure : .

like: For lines less than a certain length, there is an equilateral triangle with that line as one side, but this is not true for lines longer than that length.

In Figure 2.53a, we are given a line connecting points A and B. Draw circles (not great circles) with one of the points A or B as center and passing through the other, and let C be a point of intersection of these circles. The distance from A to C and from B to C equals the distance from A to B. The equilateral triangle ABC is pictured in Figure 2.53b, slightly enlarged, using arcs of great circles (the straight lines in this geometry) to connect the points. If we try the same construction with a big line AB, as in Figure 2.54a, the circles centered at A and B will not meet, and so there is no point C whose distances from both A and B equal the distance from A to B. Thus there is no equilateral triangle with AB as side.
Figure : .

AREA AND EXCESS

The most quantitative result measuring the deviation of spherical geometry from Euclidean is the following. THEOREM: On a sphere of radius R, if a triangle has area A and angle sum S, then
A = 180 R2 (S180) This formula appeared in a book by Albert Girard in 1629, which makes it somewhat surprising that the prediscoverers of hyperbolic geometry found the analogous results so strange. The amount S 180 by which the angle sum of a triangle exceeds 180 is called the excess of the triangle. This formula makes it clear how the ratio is the same for all triangles on a sphere, but the ratio can have any value, depending on the size of the sphere.Note that a consequence of Theorem is that triangles have the same angle sum if and only if they have the same area.

In particular,there are no similar triangles, triangles that have the same angles but the sides of one are a multiple (= 1)oftheother . Theorem can be used by Spherelanders to determine the radius of their sphere (provided they know that it is a sphere). If they measure a triangle to have area 10 square miles and angle sum 180.10 , they can nd the radius of their sphere by solving the equation 10 = for R, yielding R = 10 .1180 =75.7miles
2 180 R (180.1-180)