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Journal ArticleDOI

A Car Crash Solved—with a Swiss Army Knife

Marc Frantz
- 01 Dec 2011 - 
- Vol. 84, Iss: 5, pp 327-338
TLDR
In this article, the authors apply Eves's theorem to accident scene reconstruction, to the circular products in the theorems of Ceva and Menelaus, and to perspective illustrations of the geometric mean.
Abstract
Though not well known, Eves�s theorem is a fundamental result of projective geometry�a tool as versatile as a Swiss Army knife. Named for the late Howard W. Eves (1911�2004), the theorem establishes a class of numerical projective invariants, of which the famous cross ratio is a special case. We illustrate the versatility of Eves�s theorem by applying it to accident scene reconstruction, to the circular products in the theorems of Ceva and Menelaus, and to perspective illustrations of the geometric mean. In addition, we show that the theorem is illustrated by everyday photographs of buildings and other common objects.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Weighted Projective Spaces and a Generalization of Eves' Theorem

TL;DR: A generalization of Eves’ theorem, which applies to a larger class of configurations and gives an invariant with values in a weighted projective space and shows how the complex version of the invariant can be determined from classically known ratios of products of determinants.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Image of a Square

TL;DR: Every quadrangle is the perspective image of a square, illustrated by using perspective art techniques and by analogy to the visualization of conic sections.
Posted Content

Weighted Projective Spaces and a Generalization of Eves' Theorem

TL;DR: For a certain class of configurations of points in space, Eves' Theorem gives a ratio of products of distances that is invariant under projective transformations, generalizing the cross-ratio for four points on a line.
References
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Book

Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the concept of Perspective and Space Coordinates and propose a perspective game based on the number of points and views in one-point and three-point perspective games.
Journal ArticleDOI

Means Appearing in Geometric Figures

TL;DR: A list of several means of a pair of positive numbers, a and b, can be found in this paper, where the authors show that there are many other means of two given positive numbers.
Journal ArticleDOI

Isomorphism Invariants for Projective Configurations

TL;DR: An isomorphism invariant is an expression defined for a configuration in the projective plane, which takes the same value for all isomorphic configurations as mentioned in this paper, and is defined as a general method (Nehring sequences) for constructing such invariants.