conic section

noun

, Geometry.

1. a curve formed by the intersection of a plane with a right circular cone; an ellipse, a circle, a parabola, or a hyperbola.

conic section

noun

1. one of a group of curves formed by the intersection of a plane and a right circular cone. It is either a circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola, depending on the eccentricity, e , which is constant for a particular curve e = 0 for a circle; e <1 for an ellipse; e = 1 for a parabola; e>1 for a hyperbola Often shortened toconic

conic section

1. A curve formed by the intersection of a plane with a cone. Conic sections can appear as circles, ellipses, hyperbolas, or parabolas, depending on the angle of the intersecting plane relative to the cone's base.

Word History and Origins

Origin of conic section¹

First recorded in 1655–65

Example Sentences

Similarly we may hope that, at some future day, a mathematician, letting the fact-continuum of embryology play before his mind, which the palæontologists of the future will supposedly have enriched with more intermediate and derivative forms between Saurian and Bird than the isolated Pterodactyl, Archæopteryx, Ichthyornis, and so forth, which we now have—that such a mathematician shall transform, by the variation of a few parameters, as in a dissolving view, one form into another, just as we transform one conic section into another.

From Project Gutenberg

In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the parameter and semiparameter of the conic section angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force.

From Project Gutenberg

Excluding the general group itself, every one of these leaves either a point, a line, or a conic section unaltered.

From Project Gutenberg

Cō′niform, in the form of a cone.—Conic section, a figure made by the section of a cone by a plane.

From Project Gutenberg

Projection, Perspective; Curve, Surface; Circle, Conic Section; Triangle, Polygon, Polyhedron; there are also articles on special curves and figures, e.g.

From Project Gutenberg