conic section
Plane cuts cone
A conic section is a curve produced by slicing a cone with a plane—yielding a circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola depending on the angle of the cut.
The term appears mainly in mathematics and physics, where these curves describe planetary orbits, projectile paths, and optical reflections: We studied conic sections in precalculus.
- ApolloniusHellenistic geometry master
- ellipseConic section curve
- hyperbolaCurve with two branches
- vertexPoint where edges converge
- directrixLine defining conic sections
circle · focus · focal point · oval · tangent · axis · discriminant · eccentricity · asymptote · geometry · curve · polar coordinates · satellite · planetary motion · mirror · slice · secant · trajectory
geometric curve type
conic sectionpolygon
Multisided plane figure
straight line · line segment · polyhedron · triangle · square
section, cone, sections, sectional, conical, sectioned, sectioning, conic, conics