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An ellipse (red) obtained as the intersection of a cone with an inclined plane. Ellipse: notations Ellipses: examples with increasing eccentricity. In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant.
For an ellipse, two diameters are conjugate if and only if the tangent line to the ellipse at an endpoint of one diameter is parallel to the other diameter. Each pair of conjugate diameters of an ellipse has a corresponding tangent parallelogram, sometimes called a bounding parallelogram (skewed compared to a bounding rectangle).
The linear eccentricity of an ellipse or hyperbola, denoted c (or sometimes f or e), is the distance between its center and either of its two foci. The eccentricity can be defined as the ratio of the linear eccentricity to the semimajor axis a : that is, e = c a {\displaystyle e={\frac {c}{a}}} (lacking a center, the linear eccentricity for ...
Conversely, the polar line (or polar) of a point Q in a circle C is the line L such that its closest point P to the center of the circle is the inversion of Q in C. If a point A lies on the polar line q of another point Q, then Q lies on the polar line a of A. More generally, the polars of all the points on the line q must pass through its pole Q.
In elliptic geometry, two lines perpendicular to a given line must intersect. In fact, all perpendiculars to a given line intersect at a single point called the absolute pole of that line. Every point corresponds to an absolute polar line of which it is the absolute pole. Any point on this polar line forms an absolute conjugate pair with the
Diameter: a line segment whose endpoints lie on the circle and that passes through the centre; or the length of such a line segment. This is the largest distance between any two points on the circle. It is a special case of a chord, namely the longest chord for a given circle, and its length is twice the length of a radius.
If a circle q passes through two distinct points A and A' which are inverses with respect to a circle k, then the circles k and q are orthogonal. If the circles k and q are orthogonal, then a straight line passing through the center O of k and intersecting q, does so at inverse points with respect to k. Given a triangle OAB in which O is the ...
An ellipse can be drawn (by computer or by hand), if besides the center at least two conjugate points on conjugate diameters are known. In this case either one determines by Rytz's construction the vertices of the ellipse and draws the ellipse with a suitable ellipse compass; or uses an parametric representation for drawing the ellipse.