Concept
In geometry, the Desargues configuration is a configuration of ten points and ten lines, with three points per line and three lines per point. It is named after Girard Desargues. The Desargues configuration can be constructed in two dimensions from the points and lines occurring in Desargues's theorem, in three dimensions from five planes in general position, or in four dimensions from the 5-cell, the four-dimensional regular simplex. It has a large group of symmetries, taking any point to any other point and any line to any other line. It is also self-dual, meaning that if the points are replaced by lines and vice versa using projective duality, the same configuration results. Graphs associated with the Desargues configuration include the Desargues graph (its graph of point-line incidences) and the Petersen graph (its graph of non-incident lines). The Desargues configuration is one of ten different configurations with ten points and lines, three points per line, and three lines per point, nine of which can be realized in the Euclidean plane. Two triangles and are said to be in perspective centrally if the lines , , and meet in a common point, called the center of perspectivity. They are in perspective axially if the intersection points of the corresponding triangle sides, , , and all lie on a common line, the axis of perspectivity. Desargues's theorem in geometry states that these two conditions are equivalent: if two triangles are in perspective centrally then they must also be in perspective axially, and vice versa. When this happens, the ten points and ten lines of the two perspectivities (the six triangle vertices, three crossing points, and center of perspectivity, and the six triangle sides, three lines through corresponding pairs of vertices, and axis of perspectivity) together form an instance of the Desargues configuration. Although it may be embedded in two dimensions, the Desargues configuration has a very simple construction in three dimensions: for any configuration of five planes in general position in Euclidean space, the ten points where three planes meet and the ten lines formed by the intersection of two of the planes together form an instance of the configuration.
