In the present note we show that the elements of GF(q2) (q = 2n) can be represented in “polar form” in such a way that GF(q2) acts like an “Argand diagram” over its “real subfield” GF(q). From this polar representation it is easy to develop a trigonometry of the plane GF(q2), including definitions of circles and orthogonality. As an application of these ideas we show, in §4, that the circles and lines orthogonal to a given circle yield a new model satisfying Graves' axioms for finite homogeneous hyperbolic planes.

We say that a system ∑ of equal spheres S1S2, … covers a proportion θ of n-dimensional space, if the limit, as the side of the cube C tends to infinity, of the ratio

of the volume of C covered by the spheres to the volume of C, exists and has the value θ. We say that such a system ∑ has density δ, if the corresponding ratio

has the limit δ as the side of the cube C tends to infinity. We confine our attention to systems ∑ for which both limits exist. It is clear that δ = θ, if no two spheres of the system overlap, i.e. if we have a. packing; and that, in general, the difference δ-θ is a measure of the amount of overlapping.

Professor C. L. Siegel has pointed out that the statement following equation (9) on page 98 of [1] is false, but can be made correct by adding to the conditions (7) of [1] the further condition:

In the theory of the interaction between simple electrically neutral systems with dipole moments, the interaction energy between two such systems when they are identical, one in an excited state and the other in the ground state, is of current interest. It is well-known that, within the Coulomb force approximation for the electron-electron interaction, the energy varies as

where q(r) is the electric dipole moment of the system r = 1, 2, and R is the vector displacement of system 2 from system 1. This is the so called resonance attraction between the systems. On the other hand it has been known since 1948 (see [1]) that for two systems both in their ground states the potential of interaction falls off at large separation faster than the London formula for the energy, namely

predicts. In equation (2) α(r) is the polarization of the system r, in terms of the dipole moments (here induced)

where E is the energy separation between the two states considered, i.e., the ground state and the excited state reached from the ground state by electric dipole transitions. In fact the asymptotic form of the potential energy at separation was given by Casimir and Polder as