Paper 3, Section II, G
Part IB, 2009
Consider a tessellation of the two-dimensional sphere, that is to say a decomposition of the sphere into polygons each of which has at least three sides. Let and denote the numbers of edges, vertices and faces in the tessellation, respectively. State Euler's formula. Prove that . Deduce that not all the vertices of the tessellation have valence .
By considering the plane , or otherwise, deduce the following: if is a finite set of straight lines in the plane with the property that every intersection point of two lines is an intersection point of at least three, then all the lines in meet at a single point.