Spherical and hyperbolic conics

Abstract

This is a survey of metric properties of non-Euclidean conics, mainly based on works of Chasles and Story. A spherical conic is the intersection of the sphere with a quadratic cone; similarly, a hyperbolic conic is the intersection of the Beltrami-Cayley-Klein disk with an affine conic. Non-Euclidean conics have metric properties similar to those of Euclidean conics, and even more due to the polarity that works here better than in the Euclidean plane.

50 pages, 37 figures