Read · 1 min
Suppose that we have an isometry with two fixed points and . Thus, and .
Consider a point on the line . Let and . Let .
Since is an isometry, must lie on the hypersphere (the number of dimensions will remain unspecified for maximal generality) with center and radius .
Similarly, must also lie on the hypersphere with center and radius .
But wait! Since lies on the line , one of the quantities must equal !
This means that the two hyperspheres mentioned above are tangent, and what is their single point of intersection?
You guessed it; it's our point ! Clearly, we know from the conditions that satisfies the two conditions; moreover, since we know that the hyperspheres are tangent, no other point could work.
Thus, we have that , which means that is also a fixed point of the isometry.
Since was an arbitrary point on the line , the same must hold for all points on the line; thus, we have that any isometry that fixes two points fixes all points on the line containing them.