In Cartesian coordinates on the sphere and on the plane, the projection and its inverse are given by the formulas
and
.
It is not hard to see that
Now we use the trick introduced in this entry. Let
and let
.
The determinant we are trying to compute is
which is the characteristic polynomial of evaluated at times .
Now, is certainly diagonalizable (which doesn’t even matter, but it makes it easier to think about), and we know its eigenvalues. Why do we know its eigenvalues? Because is a matrix of rank , hence nullity , hence of its eigenvalues are zero. What is the other eigenvalue? It’s the same as the sum of the eigenvalues, which is the trace of , which is . Put that information together, and we have that the characteristic polynomial of is
.
Substitute for to get
which implies
.
Thus
which implies
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