Tossup

Thurston proved that a knot must have this property if it is not a torus knot or a satellite knot. A space with this property has as its orientation-preserving isometries the group of real Möbius transformations with determinant one. Spaces with this property have curves called horocycles, can be modeled in two dimensions by Poincaré’s half-plane and disk, and have constant negative curvature. (10[3])This property is the first word in a class of functions derived from the pair “e-to-the-x plus-or-minus e-to-the-negative-x all (10[1])over two.” (10[3])Lobachevsky (10[1])names a non-Euclidean geometry with this property, which breaks the parallel postulate and has triangles whose angles sum to less than 180 degrees. (10[1])For 10 points, what property derives from the name of a conic section exemplified by the function one-over-x? ■END■

ANSWER: hyperbolic [accept hyperbola; accept hyperbolic functions or hyperbolic trigonometric functions]
<Oxford A, Other Science>
= Average correct buzz position

Back to tossups