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The curve of the chains of a suspension bridge is always an intermediate curve between a parabola and a catenary, but in practice the curve is generally nearer to a parabola due to the weight of the load (i.e. the road) being much larger than the cables themselves, and in calculations the second-degree polynomial formula of a parabola is used.
In the case of a single parameter, parametric equations are commonly used to express the trajectory of a moving point, in which case, the parameter if often, but not necessarily, time, and the point describes a curve, called a parametric curve. In the case of two parameters, the point describes a surface, called a parametric surface.
For quadratic Bézier curves one can construct intermediate points Q 0 and Q 1 such that as t varies from 0 to 1: Point Q 0 (t) varies from P 0 to P 1 and describes a linear Bézier curve. Point Q 1 (t) varies from P 1 to P 2 and describes a linear Bézier curve. Point B(t) is interpolated linearly between Q 0 (t) to Q 1 (t) and describes a ...
Intersecting with the line at infinity, each conic section has two points at infinity. If these points are real, the curve is a hyperbola; if they are imaginary conjugates, it is an ellipse; if there is only one double point, it is a parabola. If the points at infinity are the cyclic points [1: i: 0] and [1: –i: 0], the conic section is a circle.
Low-order polynomials tend to be smooth and high order polynomial curves tend to be "lumpy". To define this more precisely, the maximum number of inflection points possible in a polynomial curve is n-2, where n is the order of the polynomial equation. An inflection point is a location on the curve where it switches from a positive radius to ...
The two subtleties in the above analysis are that the resulting point is a quadratic equation (not a linear equation), and that the constraints are independent. The first is simple: if A , B , and C all vanish, then the equation D x + E y + F = 0 {\displaystyle Dx+Ey+F=0} defines a line, and any 3 points on this (indeed any number of points ...
Arc length is the distance between two points along a section of a curve. Determining the length of an irregular arc segment by approximating the arc segment as connected (straight) line segments is also called curve rectification. For a rectifiable curve these approximations don't get arbitrarily large (so the curve has a finite length).
The center of a conic, if it exists, is a point that bisects all the chords of the conic that pass through it. This property can be used to calculate the coordinates of the center, which can be shown to be the point where the gradient of the quadratic function Q vanishes—that is, [8] = [,] = [,].