An extension of a theorem of G. Tallini

A Tallini set in a projective space P is a set Q of points of P such that each line not contained in Q intersects Q in at most two points. We prove that if P is a finite projective space with odd order q > 3 and dimension d > 2 and if |Q| > q^{d ? 1} + 2q^{d ? 3} + q^{d ? 4} + … + 1, then Q is essentially an orthogonal quadric. The proof of this theorem is based on a characterization of the orthogonal quadrics in every finite dimensional projective space (with possibly infinite order).