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A conic is the curve obtained as the intersection of a plane, called the cutting plane, with the surface of a double cone (a cone with two nappes).It is usually assumed that the cone is a right circular cone for the purpose of easy description, but this is not required; any double cone with some circular cross-section will suffice.
A conic is defined as the locus of points for each of which the distance to the focus divided by the distance to the directrix is a fixed positive constant, called the eccentricity e. If 0 < e < 1 the conic is an ellipse, if e = 1 the conic is a parabola, and if e > 1 the conic is a hyperbola.
A pencil of confocal ellipses and hyperbolas is specified by choice of linear eccentricity c (the x-coordinate of one focus) and can be parametrized by the semi-major axis a (the x-coordinate of the intersection of a specific conic in the pencil and the x-axis). When 0 < a < c the conic is a hyperbola; when c < a the conic is an ellipse.
Media in category "Conic sections" This category contains only the following file. Drawing an ellipse via two tacks a loop and a pen 2.jpg 480 × 640; 24 KB
In geometry, the conic constant (or Schwarzschild constant, [1] after Karl Schwarzschild) is a quantity describing conic sections, and is represented by the letter K. The constant is given by K = − e 2 , {\displaystyle K=-e^{2},} where e is the eccentricity of the conic section.
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.
The ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola are viewed as conics in projective geometry, and each conic determines a relation of pole and polar between points and lines. Using these concepts, "two diameters are conjugate when each is the polar of the figurative point of the other."
Definition of focal conics A,C: vertices of the ellipse and foci of the hyperbola E,F: foci of the ellipse and vertices of the hyperbola Focal conics: two parabolas A: vertex of the red parabola and focus of the blue parabola