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I have a bunch of implicit algebraic surfaces, and for various combinations of those surfaces, I want to check if the number of intersection points is infinite.

For example, 3 perpendicular cylinders have 8 intersection points.

In[1]:= Solve[x^2 + y^2 == 1 && y^2 + z^2 == 1 && z^2 + x^2 == 1, {x, y, z}, Reals]
Out[1]= {{x -> -(1/Sqrt[2]), y -> -(1/Sqrt[2]), z -> -(1/Sqrt[2])},
         {x -> -(1/Sqrt[2]), y -> -(1/Sqrt[2]), z ->   1/Sqrt[2] },
         …

Whereas 2 cylinders have infinite intersection points.

In[2]:= Solve[x^2 + y^2 == 1 && x^2 + z^2 == 1, {x, y, z}, Reals]
Out[2]= {{y -> ConditionalExpression[-Sqrt[1 - x^2], -1 <= x <= 1], 
          z -> ConditionalExpression[-Sqrt[1 - x^2], -1 <= x <= 1]},
         …

Length and CountDistinct don't help; they get the number of formulas in the list, not the number of solutions described by those formulas.

In[3]:= Solve[x^2 + y^2 == 1 && x^2 + z^2 == 1, {x, y, z}, Reals] // Length
Out[3]= 4

Nor does replacing Solve with Reduce.

I came up with a very hacky method: if FindInstance can find a "large" number of solutions, then guess that there are infinite solutions.

In[4]:= n = 1000;
In[5]:= Length[FindInstance[x^2+y^2-1==0 && y^2+z^2-1==0 && x^2+z^2-1==0, {x,y,z}, Reals, n]] == n
Out[5]= False
In[6]:= Length[FindInstance[x^2+y^2-1==0 && x^2+z^2-1==0, {x,y,z}, Reals, n]] == n
Out[6]= True

But that's unreliable and inefficient. Is there a better way?

Improve this question
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    $\begingroup$ (1) If you relax the reals requirement you can use NSolve. It will issue a message for solution sets with positive dimension. (2) If you have a bound on the number of solutions in the finite case, e.g. the Bezout bound, then FindInstance providing more solutions than that bound suffices to show the solution set is infinite. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Lichtblau
    Oct 13, 2020 at 21:47
  • $\begingroup$ Why does Reduce not help. If the results of reduce are functions of some variables, you know that there are an infinity of solutions. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Huber
    Oct 14, 2020 at 12:19
  • $\begingroup$ @DanielLichtblau, (1) That seems to work, thanks! (2) I wasn't aware of Bézout. It looks like it won't help me because not all my polynomials are homogeneous (?) e.g. one of my surfaces is x^2 + y^2 + (z^2 + 1)*(z^4 - 1)/4 == 0. $\endgroup$
    – ppm
    Oct 14, 2020 at 19:02
  • $\begingroup$ @DanielHuber How can I check for functions in the output of Reduce? And is Reduce guaranteed to only output functions in the infinite case? $\endgroup$
    – ppm
    Oct 14, 2020 at 19:03
  • $\begingroup$ Use total degrees. Their product is an upper bound and hence applies in the non-homogeneous case. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Lichtblau
    Oct 14, 2020 at 19:07

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