Another Proof of Segre's Theorem about Ovals

Abstract

In 1955 B. Segre showed that any oval in a projective plane over a finite field of odd order is a conic. His proof constructs a conic which matches the oval in some points, and then shows that it actually coincides with the oval. Here we give another proof. We describe the oval by a possibly high degree polynomial, and then show that the degree is actually 2.