AstrolabeAn astrolabe (ἀστρολάβος astrolábos; ٱلأَسْطُرلاب al-Asṭurlāb; ستارهیاب Setāreyāb) is an astronomical instrument dating back to ancient times. It serves as a star chart and physical model of visible heavenly bodies. Its various functions also make it an elaborate inclinometer and an analog calculation device capable of working out several kinds of problems in astronomy. In its simplest form it is a metal disc with a pattern of wires, cutouts, and perforations that allows a user to calculate astronomical positions precisely.
Point at infinityIn geometry, a point at infinity or ideal point is an idealized limiting point at the "end" of each line. In the case of an affine plane (including the Euclidean plane), there is one ideal point for each pencil of parallel lines of the plane. Adjoining these points produces a projective plane, in which no point can be distinguished, if we "forget" which points were added. This holds for a geometry over any field, and more generally over any division ring. In the real case, a point at infinity completes a line into a topologically closed curve.
Minkowski spaceIn mathematical physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) (mɪŋˈkɔːfski,_-ˈkɒf-) combines inertial space and time manifolds (x,y) with a non-inertial reference frame of space and time (x',t') into a four-dimensional model relating a position (inertial frame of reference) to the field (physics). A four-vector (x,y,z,t) consists of a coordinate axes such as a Euclidean space plus time. This may be used with the non-inertial frame to illustrate specifics of motion, but should not be confused with the spacetime model generally.
Cross section (geometry)In geometry and science, a cross section is the non-empty intersection of a solid body in three-dimensional space with a plane, or the analog in higher-dimensional spaces. Cutting an object into slices creates many parallel cross-sections. The boundary of a cross-section in three-dimensional space that is parallel to two of the axes, that is, parallel to the plane determined by these axes, is sometimes referred to as a contour line; for example, if a plane cuts through mountains of a raised-relief map parallel to the ground, the result is a contour line in two-dimensional space showing points on the surface of the mountains of equal elevation.
Degeneracy (mathematics)In mathematics, a degenerate case is a limiting case of a class of objects which appears to be qualitatively different from (and usually simpler than) the rest of the class, and the term degeneracy is the condition of being a degenerate case. The definitions of many classes of composite or structured objects often implicitly include inequalities. For example, the angles and the side lengths of a triangle are supposed to be positive. The limiting cases, where one or several of these inequalities become equalities, are degeneracies.
Elliptic geometryElliptic geometry is an example of a geometry in which Euclid's parallel postulate does not hold. Instead, as in spherical geometry, there are no parallel lines since any two lines must intersect. However, unlike in spherical geometry, two lines are usually assumed to intersect at a single point (rather than two). Because of this, the elliptic geometry described in this article is sometimes referred to as single elliptic geometry whereas spherical geometry is sometimes referred to as double elliptic geometry.
Rhumb lineIn navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (rʌm), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north. The effect of following a rhumb line course on the surface of a globe was first discussed by the Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes in 1537, in his Treatise in Defense of the Marine Chart, with further mathematical development by Thomas Harriot in the 1590s.
Lambert azimuthal equal-area projectionThe Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection is a particular mapping from a sphere to a disk. It accurately represents area in all regions of the sphere, but it does not accurately represent angles. It is named for the Swiss mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert, who announced it in 1772. "Zenithal" being synonymous with "azimuthal", the projection is also known as the Lambert zenithal equal-area projection. The Lambert azimuthal projection is used as a map projection in cartography.
Projective linear groupIn mathematics, especially in the group theoretic area of algebra, the projective linear group (also known as the projective general linear group or PGL) is the induced action of the general linear group of a vector space V on the associated projective space P(V). Explicitly, the projective linear group is the quotient group PGL(V) = GL(V)/Z(V) where GL(V) is the general linear group of V and Z(V) is the subgroup of all nonzero scalar transformations of V; these are quotiented out because they act trivially on the projective space and they form the kernel of the action, and the notation "Z" reflects that the scalar transformations form the center of the general linear group.
Birational geometryIn mathematics, birational geometry is a field of algebraic geometry in which the goal is to determine when two algebraic varieties are isomorphic outside lower-dimensional subsets. This amounts to studying mappings that are given by rational functions rather than polynomials; the map may fail to be defined where the rational functions have poles. A rational map from one variety (understood to be irreducible) to another variety , written as a dashed arrow X Y, is defined as a morphism from a nonempty open subset to .
Projection (mathematics)In mathematics, a projection is an idempotent mapping of a set (or other mathematical structure) into a subset (or sub-structure). In this case, idempotent means that projecting twice is the same as projecting once. The restriction to a subspace of a projection is also called a projection, even if the idempotence property is lost. An everyday example of a projection is the casting of shadows onto a plane (sheet of paper): the projection of a point is its shadow on the sheet of paper, and the projection (shadow) of a point on the sheet of paper is that point itself (idempotency).
Real projective planeIn mathematics, the real projective plane is an example of a compact non-orientable two-dimensional manifold; in other words, a one-sided surface. It cannot be embedded in standard three-dimensional space without intersecting itself. It has basic applications to geometry, since the common construction of the real projective plane is as the space of lines in \mathbb{R}^3 passing through the origin.
