Paper 2, Section II, G
Part IB, 2009
What is meant by stereographic projection from the unit sphere in to the complex plane? Briefly explain why a spherical triangle cannot map to a Euclidean triangle under stereographic projection.
Derive an explicit formula for stereographic projection. Hence, or otherwise, prove that if a Möbius map corresponds via stereographic projection to a rotation of the sphere, it has two fixed points and which satisfy . Give, with justification:
(i) a Möbius transformation which fixes a pair of points satisfying but which does not arise from a rotation of the sphere;
(ii) an isometry of the sphere (for the spherical metric) which does not correspond to any Möbius transformation under stereographic projection.