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Although all the coefficients in the equation of a plane algebraic curve may be real numbers, it by no means follows that the equations of all its bitangents are real. But Plücker perceived that this could happen for the 28 bitangents of a nonsingular plane quartic. Where can this be observed in a body of 28 explicit linear equations? This modest note affords an example.

SynopsisA certain plane sextic of genus 5 was encountered by Humbert and publicised by him [3] in 1894. Its striking geometrical properties clamour for elucidation; this was eventually supplied in 1951. For the canonical curve of genus 5 is the base curve C of a net N of quadrics in projective space [4], and C models a Humbert curve when all the quadrics of N have a common self-polar simplex [1]. The projection of C from one of its chords onto a plane is a 5-nodal sextic, the nodes all becoming cusps when the chord of C becomes a tangent. The properties to be elucidated become clear visually in the projection.The sextic H described here is a specialisation of the cusped curve; it emerges as linearly dependent on a pair of reducible plane sextics concocted ad hoc.

SynopsisThis note sets out from the observation that it is not, in general, possible to express a homogeneous cubic polynomial in five variables as a sum of cubes of seven linear forms. Some of the geometry, to which particular cubics which do happen to be so expressible give rise, is described. Further particularisations are mentioned, and one such cubic investigated in some detail.

SynopsisAny non-ruled quartic surface with a double line in space of three dimensions has plane sections of genus 2 and so is a projection of a non-singular duodecimic surface in space of eleven dimensions. This was accepted as an established fact by 1890, but there seems not to be any account of such a projection in action. The following pages are submitted to aid the removal of this century-old anomaly.

SynopsisThe cubic surfaces in, save for the elliptic cone, are, whatever their singularities, projections of del Pezzo's non-singular surface F, of order 9 in. It is explained how, merely by specifying the geometrical relation of the vertex of projection to F, each cubic surface is obtainable “at a stroke”, without using spaces of intermediate dimensions.

SynopsisWhen the points of a projective space [9] map ternary cubics the maps of perfect cubes are the points of a del Pezzo surface F. Several manifolds linked with F are listed and the cubics mapped on these are noted. A new approach leads to the first of Aronhold's two invariants.