Plane curve in the context of "Earth section paths"

In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of both distances to the two focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special type of ellipse in which the two focal points are the same. The elongation of an ellipse is measured by its eccentricity ${\displaystyle e}$, a number ranging from ${\displaystyle e=0}$ (the limiting case of a circle) to ${\displaystyle e=1}$ (the limiting case of infinite elongation, no longer an ellipse but a parabola).

An ellipse has a simple algebraic solution for its area, but for its perimeter (also known as circumference), integration is required to obtain an exact solution.

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 directrix. The parabola is the locus of points in that plane that are equidistant from the directrix and the focus. Another description of a parabola is as a conic section, created from the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to another plane that is tangential to the conical surface.

In mathematics, a hyperbola is a type of smooth curve lying in a plane, defined by its geometric properties or by equations for which it is the solution set. A hyperbola has two pieces, called connected components or branches, that are mirror images of each other and resemble two infinite bows. The hyperbola is one of the three kinds of conic section, formed by the intersection of a plane and a double cone. (The other conic sections are the parabola and the ellipse. A circle is a special case of an ellipse.) If the plane intersects both halves of the double cone but does not pass through the apex of the cones, then the conic is a hyperbola.

Besides being a conic section, a hyperbola can arise as the locus of points whose difference of distances to two fixed foci is constant, as a curve for each point of which the rays to two fixed foci are reflections across the tangent line at that point, or as the solution of certain bivariate quadratic equations such as the reciprocal relationship ${\displaystyle xy=1.}$ In practical applications, a hyperbola can arise as the path followed by the shadow of the tip of a sundial's gnomon, the shape of an open orbit such as that of a celestial object exceeding the escape velocity of the nearest gravitational body, or the scattering trajectory of a subatomic particle, among others.

Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or plane area refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while surface area refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat. It is the two-dimensional analogue of the length of a curve (a one-dimensional concept) or the volume of a solid (a three-dimensional concept).Two different regions may have the same area (as in squaring the circle); by synecdoche, "area" sometimes is used to refer to the region, as in a "polygonal area".

The area of a shape can be measured by comparing the shape to squares of a fixed size. In the International System of Units (SI), the standard unit of area is the square metre (written as m), which is the area of a square whose sides are one metre long. A shape with an area of three square metres would have the same area as three such squares. In mathematics, the unit square is defined to have area one, and the area of any other shape or surface is a dimensionless real number.

In mathematics, the graph of a function ${\displaystyle f}$ is the set of ordered pairs ${\displaystyle (x,y)}$, where ${\displaystyle f(x)=y.}$ In the common case where ${\displaystyle x}$ and ${\displaystyle f(x)}$ are real numbers, these pairs are Cartesian coordinates of points in a plane and often form a curve.The graphical representation of the graph of a function is also known as a plot.

In the case of functions of two variables – that is, functions whose domain consists of pairs ${\displaystyle (x,y)}$ –, the graph usually refers to the set of ordered triples ${\displaystyle (x,y,z)}$ where ${\displaystyle f(x,y)=z}$. This is a subset of three-dimensional space; for a continuous real-valued function of two real variables, its graph forms a surface, which can be visualized as a surface plot.

In geometry, a normal is an object (e.g. a line, ray, or vector) that is perpendicular to a given object. For example, the normal line to a plane curve at a given point is the infinite straight line perpendicular to the tangent line to the curve at the point.

A normal vector is a vector perpendicular to a given object at a particular point.A normal vector of length one is called a unit normal vector or normal direction. A curvature vector is a normal vector whose length is the curvature of the object. Multiplying a normal vector by −1 results in the opposite vector, which may be used for indicating sides (e.g., interior or exterior) or orientation (e.g., clockwise vs. counterclockwise, right handed vs. left handed).

The Whewell equation of a plane curve is an equation that relates the tangential angle (φ) with arc length (s), where the tangential angle is the angle between the tangent to the curve at some point and the x-axis, and the arc length is the distance along the curve from a fixed point. These quantities do not depend on the coordinate system used except for the choice of the direction of the x-axis, so this is an intrinsic equation of the curve, or, less precisely, the intrinsic equation. If one curve is obtained from another curve by translation then their Whewell equations will be the same.

When the relation is a function, so that tangential angle is given as a function of arc length, certain properties become easy to manipulate. In particular, the derivative of the tangential angle with respect to arc length is equal to the curvature. Thus, taking the derivative of the Whewell equation yields a Cesàro equation for the same curve.

In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is, intuitively, the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More precisely, a straight line is tangent to the curve y = f(x) at a point x = c if the line passes through the point (c, f(c)) on the curve and has slope f'(c), where f' is the derivative of f. A similar definition applies to space curves and curves in n-dimensional Euclidean space.

The point where the tangent line and the curve meet or intersect is called the point of tangency. The tangent line is said to be "going in the same direction" as the curve, and is thus the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point.The tangent line to a point on a differentiable curve can also be thought of as a tangent line approximation, the graph of the affine function that best approximates the original function at the given point.

In mathematics, a quadric or quadric surface is a generalization of conic sections (ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas). In three-dimensional space, quadrics include ellipsoids, paraboloids, and hyperboloids.

More generally, a quadric hypersurface (of dimension D) embedded in a higher dimensional space (of dimension D + 1) is defined as the zero set of an irreducible polynomial of degree two in D + 1 variables; for example, D=1 is the case of conic sections (plane curves). When the defining polynomial is not absolutely irreducible, the zero set is generally not considered a quadric, although it is often called a degenerate quadric or a reducible quadric.