Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A conic section, conic or a quadratic curve is a curve obtained from a cone's surface intersecting a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola , the parabola , and the ellipse ; the circle is a special case of the ellipse, though it was sometimes called as a fourth type.
It is an affine image of the right-circular unit cone with equation + = . From the fact, that the affine image of a conic section is a conic section of the same type (ellipse, parabola,...), one gets: Any plane section of an elliptic cone is a conic section. Obviously, any right circular cone contains circles.
More generally, when the directrix is an ellipse, or any conic section, and the apex is an arbitrary point not on the plane of , one obtains an elliptic cone [4] (also called a conical quadric or quadratic cone), [5] which is a special case of a quadric surface. [4] [5]
In mathematics, the matrix representation of conic sections permits the tools of linear algebra to be used in the study of conic sections.It provides easy ways to calculate a conic section's axis, vertices, tangents and the pole and polar relationship between points and lines of the plane determined by the conic.
Conics, also known as conic sections to emphasize their three-dimensional geometry, arise as the intersection of a plane with a cone. Degeneracy occurs when the plane contains the apex of the cone or when the cone degenerates to a cylinder and the plane is parallel to the axis of the cylinder. See Conic section#Degenerate cases for details.
In geometry, a spherical sector, [1] also known as a spherical cone, [2] is a portion of a sphere or of a ball defined by a conical boundary with apex at the center of the sphere. It can be described as the union of a spherical cap and the cone formed by the center of the sphere and the base of the cap.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Plane section of a cone. Any conic section can be defined as the locus of points whose distances to a point (the focus) and a line (the directrix) are in a constant ratio. That ratio is called the eccentricity, commonly denoted as e.