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In Euclidean plane geometry, a tangent line to a circle is a line that touches the circle at exactly one point, never entering the circle's interior. Tangent lines to circles form the subject of several theorems , and play an important role in many geometrical constructions and proofs .
The tangent line is said to be "going in the same direction" as the curve, and is thus the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point. The tangent line to a point on a differentiable curve can also be thought of as a tangent line approximation, the graph of the affine function that best approximates the original function at the ...
All tangent circles to the given circles can be found by varying line . Positions of the centers Circles tangent to two circles. If is the center and the radius of the circle, that is tangent to the given circles at the points ,, then:
A tangent can be considered a limiting case of a secant whose ends are coincident. If a tangent from an external point A meets the circle at F and a secant from the external point A meets the circle at C and D respectively, then AF 2 = AC × AD (tangent–secant theorem).
In geometry, tangent circles (also known as kissing circles) are circles in a common plane that intersect in a single point. There are two types of tangency : internal and external. Many problems and constructions in geometry are related to tangent circles; such problems often have real-life applications such as trilateration and maximizing the ...
If two tangent lines can be drawn from a pole to the circle, then its polar passes through both tangent points. If a point lies on the circle, its polar is the tangent through this point. If a point P lies on its own polar line, then P is on the circle. Each line has exactly one pole.
A circle with 1st-order contact (tangent) A circle with 2nd-order contact (osculating) A circle with 3rd-order contact at a vertex of a curve. For each point S(t) on a smooth plane curve S, there is exactly one osculating circle, whose radius is the reciprocal of κ(t), the curvature of S at t.
A straight line can intersect a circle at zero, one, or two points. A line with intersections at two points is called a secant line, at one point a tangent line and at no points an exterior line. A chord is the line segment that joins two distinct points of a circle. A chord is therefore contained in a unique secant line and each secant line ...