Euclidean isometries

59 Views Asked by At

I am asked to show that every translation of the euclidean plane can be written as two reflections.

How do I proceed (algebraicly)?

My idea is to proof it in a sense of creating a rectangular triangle which creates the translation vector as the resulting vector of two reflections.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

enter image description here

Suppose $A(a, b)$ is the object and $B(a’, b’)$ is its image after a translation (the dotted line).

Locate the (green) line which is $L_1 : x = \frac {a + a’}{2}$

Locate the (blue) line which is $L_2 : y = \frac {b + b’}{2}$

A is first reflected about the $L_1$ to $C$ and then reflected about $L_2$ to $B$.