Universal Hyperbolic Geometry I: Trigonometry

Abstract

Hyperbolic geometry is developed in a purely algebraic fashion from first principles, without a prior development of differential geometry. The natural connection with the geometry of Lorentz, Einstein and Minkowski comes from a projective point of view, with trigonometric laws that extend to `points at infinity', here called `null points', and beyond to `ideal points' associated to a hyperboloid of one sheet. The theory works over a general field not of characteristic two, and the main laws can be viewed as deformations of those from planar rational trigonometry. There are many new features.