Talk:Surface (geometry)

Article Checklist for "Surface (geometry)"

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Checklist last edited by	--AlekStos 14:46, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

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Are surfaces necessarily infinite?

Is a surface only something like a plane or sphere, which has no edges, or would one face of a cube count as a surface? If a surface necessarily has no edges, isn't it misleading to say it has length and breadth? --Catherine Woodgold 20:20, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

I think the point here is that surfaces are 2-dimensional. In algebraic geometry, you can consider surfaces defined over arbitrartry fields (even finite ones), but in differfdential geometry you're pretty much limited to R (or C). But even in the case of algebraic surfaces, you usually work over an algebraically closed field and then talk about points definable (or "rational") over a subfield. Greg Woodhouse 21:37, 27 April 2007 (CDT)