In the theory of algebraic plane curves, a general quartic plane curve has 28 bitangent lines, lines that are tangent to the curve in two places. These lines exist in the complex projective plane, but it is possible to define quartic curves for which all 28 of these lines have real numbers as their coordinates and therefore belong to the Euclidean plane.
An explicit quartic with twenty-eight real bitangents was first given by Plücker (1839)[1] As Plücker showed, the number of real bitangents of any quartic must be 28, 16, or a number less than 9. Another quartic with 28 real bitangents can be formed by the locus of centers of ellipses with fixed axis lengths, tangent to two non-parallel lines.[2] Shioda (1995) gave a different construction of a quartic with twenty-eight bitangents, formed by projecting a cubic surface; twenty-seven of the bitangents to Shioda's curve are real while the twenty-eighth is the line at infinity in the projective plane.
- ^ See e.g. Gray (1982).
- ^ Blum & Guinand (1964).