Conic Sections

Conic Section: The intersection into a plane and right, circular cone known as a hyperbola, ellipse or parabola.

Many real-world uses of an ellipse can be seen in many types of architecture, a glass of tipped water, even food is cut into ellipses. It can be used to create a focal point for many reasons from billiard tables to medical procedures. Parabolas are often an outcome of water fountains or dolphins diving out of the water. Parabolas are the idea behind headlights, shooting cannons, and telescopes. Examples of hyperbolas can be seen in an hourglass or a cooling tower. The knowledge of this conic section helped create long-range navigation through radio signals.

A foci is a a point having the property that the distances from any point on a curve to it and to a fixed line have a constant ratio for all points on the curve. The directrix is the fixed line that describes the curve or surface. A circle is a closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from a point within it called the center.

An ellipse is a conic section that has the same distances of its periphery to the foci. A hyperbola however always has two different distances. A parabola has a set of fized lines that are equidistant to its fixed points.