The real projective plane is the closed topological manifold, denoted ,
that is obtained by projecting the points of a plane from a fixed point (not on the plane), with the addition of the line
at infinity. It can be described by connecting the sides of a square in the orientations
illustrated above (Gardner 1971, pp. 15-17; Gray 1997, pp. 323-324).
There is then a one-to-one correspondence between points in
and lines through
not parallel to .
Lines through
that are parallel to have a one-to-one correspondence with points on the line
at infinity. Since each line through intersects the sphere centered at and tangent to in two antipodal points,
can be described as a quotient space of by identifying any two such points. The real projective
plane is a nonorientable surface. The equator
of
(which, in the quotient space, is itself a projective
line) corresponds to the line at infinity.
The complete graph on 6 vertices can be drawn in the projective plane without any lines crossing,
as illustrated above. Here, the projective plane is shown as a dashed circle, where
lines continue on the opposite side of the circle. The dual of on the projective plane is the Petersen
graph.
The Boy surface, cross-cap, and Roman surface are all homeomorphic to the real
projective plane and, because is nonorientable, these surfaces contain self-intersections
(Kuiper 1961, Pinkall 1986).