conic sections
Sliced cone curves
Conic sections are the curves produced when a plane intersects a cone: circle, ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola.
The angle of the cut determines which curve results.
These shapes appear throughout mathematics, physics, and engineering—planetary orbits are ellipses, satellite dishes are parabolic, and hyperbolas describe certain trajectories.
The term often appears in geometry and algebra courses: We spent a month on conic sections.
- ApolloniusHellenistic geometry master
- hyperbolaCurve with two branches
- directrixLine defining conic sections
- circlesEquidistant curves from centers
- geometryScience of spatial relationships
focus · focal point · eccentricity · equations · algebra · functions · graph paper · calculus · tangent lines · whispering gallery · headlight beam · satellite dish · quadratic · dish · focal · symmetry · satellite · projectile
conic sectionsstraight lines
Unbent one-dimensional figures
linear equations · polyhedra · fractals · splines · spirals
conic sectionsstraight lines
Unbent one-dimensional figures
line segments · polygons · polyhedra · rays
section, cone, conical, ellipse, conic, conics, conically, conic section