Euclidean/non-Euclidean April 9: Circles, Hyperbolas, and

the Projective Line

Recall we defined the unit hyperbola H as the graph of x 2 y 2 = 1 in R2 .

As with the unit circle C , we seek its arc length between two rays
emanating from the origin. Inspired by Euler’s formula for cos and sin , we
define
eu + e u eu e u
cosh u = , sinh u = , tanh u = sinh u/ cosh u.
2 2
H

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For Breakout Later

Verify the following properties of the hyperelliptic trig functions:

cosh u 2 sinh u 2 = 1
d d
cosh u = sinh u, sinh u = cosh u.
du du
cosh (u v ) = cosh u cosh v sinh u sinh v .

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Hyperbolic arc length on the unit hyperbola
! !
Suppose we have two rays OP and OQ emanating from the origin and
intersecting the unit hyperbola H at points P = (a1 , b1 ) and Q = (a2 , b2 ).
Let denote the hyperbolic arc length between P and Q. Using the
parameterization x = cosh u, y = sinh u for the unit hyperbola, we get
P = (cosh u1 , sinh u1 ) for some u1 , and Q = (cosh u2 , sinh u2 ) for some u2 ,
and so
Z Z u2 q
= ds = |dx 2 dy 2 | =
hyperbolic arc from P to Q u1
Z u2 q Z u2
|(sinh u 2 cosh u 2 )du 2 | = |du| = |u2 u1 |.
u1 u1

In other words, the hyperbolic arc length is the length of a segment in the
u-line. (Same as for circles)

te April 12, 2021 3 / 10

To make this quite concrete, the subtraction formula for cosh shows:

cosh = cosh |u1 u2 | = cosh u1 cosh u2 sinh u1 sinh u2 =

a1 a2 b1 b2 = P ·H Q,
where we’ve just defined “a hyperbolic dot product,” ·H of a pair of
vectors.
Hence the measure of the hyperbolic arc length made by rays from the
origin to points P and Q on the unit hyperbola is
1
= cosh (P ·H Q),

Which is the same as on the unit circle, replacing cosine and dot product
by the hyperbolic analogues.

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Enter back the projective line P1 (R)

Recall that the real projective line P1 (R) is the set of equivalence classes in
R2 : {(a, b) ⇠ ( a, b)| 6= 0, (a, b) 6= (0, 0)} which is to say, lines through
the origin. Every line through origin in R2 hits the unit circle in precisely 2
(antipodal) points, so we can think of P1 (R) is semi-circle, or even better,
let’s recall how we wrote it as R [ 1 as the real line plus a point “at
infinity.” For every point on C other than the “north pole” and ”south
pole”, you can intersect a line through the origin with the line x = 1.
Indeed, on P1 (R), the point (cos u, sin u) ⇠ (1, sin u/ cos u) = (1, tan u).
(This is why tan u is called the tangent function, it is the point on the line
x = 1 which is tangent to the unit circle!).
Cl tanh
antipode
y linethrough M
o
origin 4 11
tlais
a
non zero
vertor X I

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This gives a way to think of R as points on a circle, by writing t = tan u
and then mapping t ! (cos u, sin u). This gives a new way to measure
distance on the real line, by defining the distance between 2 points
↵, 2 R as |tan 1 (↵) tan 1 ( )|, which is a thing (called the arctangent
metric). L

t a

co su inn
y

uz a

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The projective line P1 (R) and the unit hyperbola

Every line through origin in R2 does not hit the unit hyperbola H. We
need (a, b) such that ( a, b) is on x 2 y 2 = 1, which is the same as
a2 > b 2 , or |a| > |b|, so only half of P1 (R) matches up with H (and when
it does, it intersects H in 2 antipodal points). I’ll let S denote this part of
P1 (R) . For every point on S, you can intersect a line through the origin
with the line x = 1. Indeed, on P1 (R), the point
(cosh u, sinh u) ⇠ (1, sinh u/ cosh u) = (1, tanh u). Unlike the case of the
circle, the image of S on the line x = 1 is not the whole line. Indeed

eu e u
tanh u = u u
=) 1 < tanh u < 1.
e +e

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This gives a way to think of the open unit interval ( 1, 1) as points on H,
by writing t = tanh u and then mapping t ! (cosh u, sinh u). This gives a
new way to measure distance on the open unit interval, by defining the
distance between 2 points ↵, 2 ( 1, 1) as |tan 1 (↵) tan 1 ( )|, which
is kind of a big deal. It takes points that are close together on an open
interval and makes their distance bigger (just what we’ll need on the Klein
model of hyperbolic space.)

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Projective distance on an open interval

More specifically, to solve t = tanh u, you can write z = e u so

2
t = zz+1/z
1/z
= zz 2 +11 which is the same as z 2 = (1 + t)/(1 t). In other
words,
1 t
u = tanh 1 (t) = (1/2) log z 2 = (1/2) log
1+t
.

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Hence our new notion of distance between 2 points ↵, 2 ( 1, 1) as
|tan 1 (↵) tan 1 ( )| is

1 ↵ 1 (1 ↵)( 1 )
|(1/2) log (1/2) log = (1/2) log ,
1+↵ 1+ ( 1 ↵)(1 + )

which we’ll call the projective distance on the open interval ( 1, 1). Note
how distances get large as ↵ and approach the same endpoint.
Rescaling, we can defined the projective distance on any open interval
(r , s) as
(s ↵)(r )
dproj (↵, ) = (1/2) log .
(r ↵)(s )
We will see this again on the Klein model for hyperbolic space.

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For next class

Work on homework and projects

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