Answers to Cross-ratio Worksheet

This all written up in Ogilvy, pp. 39-41 and Chapter 7, pp.  97-101.

Page 1.  (CA/CB) = (OA/OB)(sin COA/sin COB)

Page 2.  (DA/DB) = (OA/OB)(sin DOA/sin DOB)

These are the same formulas.  The ratio for the figure on page 2 is negative (both sides).  The cancellation of the other sines follows from sin t = sin (180 – t) for angle t measure in degrees.

Page 3.

(CA/CB)/ (DA/DB) = (sin COA/sin COB)/(sin DOA/sin DOB)

This ratio is called the cross-ratio R(C, D, A, B). This formula shows that the cross-ratio of the 4 points can be computed from the lines through O alone, without reference to which line the points are on.

Page 4.  The figure for page 4 shows that R(A, B, C, D) = R(A', B', C', D'), since both double ratios are equal to the same double-ratio of sines.