Alternative proofs of Schwartz–Zippel lemma

Here's another idea I had for a geometric proof. It uses projective geometry in an essential way.

Let $c \in \mathbb F^m$ be an affine point outside the hypersurface $S$. Project the hypersurface onto the hyperplane at infinity using $c$ as center; that is, map every $x \in S$ onto $p(x)$, the intersection of the unique line through $c$ and $x$ with the hyperplane at infinity. The preimages under $p$ of a point at infinity all lie on the same line, and therefore (again reducing the problem to dimension 1) there are most $d$ of them. The hyperplane at infinity has cardinality $|\mathbb F^{m-1}|$, so we get the familiar upper bound $|S| \leq d\ |\mathbb F^{m-1}|$.

Solved by user1435 (2,151 )
Oct 03, 2010 at 04:12