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A hyperbola is an open curve with two branches, the intersection of a plane with both halves of a double cone.The plane does not have to be parallel to the axis of the cone; the hyperbola will be symmetrical in any case.
In mathematics, a parabola is a plane curve which is mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped. It fits several superficially different mathematical descriptions, which can all be proved to define exactly the same curves. One description of a parabola involves a point (the focus) and a line (the directrix). The focus does not lie on the ...
Define b by the equations c 2 = a 2 − b 2 for an ellipse and c 2 = a 2 + b 2 for a hyperbola. For a circle, c = 0 so a 2 = b 2, with radius r = a = b. For the parabola, the standard form has the focus on the x-axis at the point (a, 0) and the directrix the line with equation x = −a. In standard form the parabola will always pass through the ...
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 ...
Analogous to confocal ellipses and hyperbolas, the plane can be covered by an orthogonal net of parabolas, which can be used for a parabolic coordinate system. The net of confocal parabolas can be considered as the image of a net of lines parallel to the coordinate axes and contained in the right half of the complex plane by the conformal map w ...
where (h, k) is the center of the ellipse in Cartesian coordinates, in which an arbitrary point is given by (x, y).The semi-major axis is the mean value of the maximum and minimum distances and of the ellipse from a focus — that is, of the distances from a focus to the endpoints of the major axis
The arms of the hyperbola approach asymptotic lines and the "right-hand" arm of one branch of a hyperbola meets the "left-hand" arm of the other branch of a hyperbola at the point at infinity; this is based on the principle that, in projective geometry, a single line meets itself at a point at infinity. The two branches of a hyperbola are thus ...
The unit hyperbola is blue, its conjugate is green, and the asymptotes are red. In geometry, the unit hyperbola is the set of points (x,y) in the Cartesian plane that satisfy the implicit equation = In the study of indefinite orthogonal groups, the unit hyperbola forms the basis for an alternative radial length