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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 considered a fourth type. The ancient Greek mathematicians studied conic sections, culminating around 200 BC with Apollonius of Perga 's systematic work on their properties.
A family of conic sections of varying eccentricity share a focus point and directrix line, including an ellipse (red, e = 1/2), a parabola (green, e = 1), and a hyperbola (blue, e = 2). The conic of eccentricity 0 in this figure is an infinitesimal circle centered at the focus, and the conic of eccentricity ∞ is an infinitesimally separated ...
Ellipses are the closed type of conic section: a plane curve tracing the intersection of a cone with a plane (see figure). Ellipses have many similarities with the other two forms of conic sections, parabolas and hyperbolas, both of which are open and unbounded. An angled cross section of a right circular cylinder is also an ellipse.
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.
The standard form of the equation of a central conic section is obtained when the conic section is translated and rotated so that its center lies at the center of the coordinate system and its axes coincide with the coordinate axes. This is equivalent to saying that the coordinate system's center is moved and the coordinate axes are rotated to ...
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 non-degenerate conic section given by equation can be identified by evaluating . The conic section is: [ 13 ] an ellipse or a circle, if B 2 − 4 A C < 0 {\displaystyle B^{2}-4AC<0} ;
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."