Radius of curvatureIn differential geometry, the radius of curvature (Rc), R, is the reciprocal of the curvature. For a curve, it equals the radius of the circular arc which best approximates the curve at that point. For surfaces, the radius of curvature is the radius of a circle that best fits a normal section or combinations thereof. In the case of a space curve, the radius of curvature is the length of the curvature vector. In the case of a plane curve, then R is the absolute value of where s is the arc length from a fixed point on the curve, φ is the tangential angle and κ is the curvature.
Quadrature of the ParabolaQuadrature of the Parabola (Τετραγωνισμὸς παραβολῆς) is a treatise on geometry, written by Archimedes in the 3rd century BC and addressed to his Alexandrian acquaintance Dositheus. It contains 24 propositions regarding parabolas, culminating in two proofs showing that the area of a parabolic segment (the region enclosed by a parabola and a line) is that of a certain inscribed triangle. It is one of the best-known works of Archimedes, in particular for its ingenious use of the method of exhaustion and in the second part of a geometric series.
Conic sectionA conic section, conic or a quadratic curve is a curve obtained from a cone's surface intersecting a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a special case of the ellipse, though it was sometimes called as a fourth type. The ancient Greek mathematicians studied conic sections, culminating around 200 BC with Apollonius of Perga's systematic work on their properties. The conic sections in the Euclidean plane have various distinguishing properties, many of which can be used as alternative definitions.
Skew linesIn three-dimensional geometry, skew lines are two lines that do not intersect and are not parallel. A simple example of a pair of skew lines is the pair of lines through opposite edges of a regular tetrahedron. Two lines that both lie in the same plane must either cross each other or be parallel, so skew lines can exist only in three or more dimensions. Two lines are skew if and only if they are not coplanar. If four points are chosen at random uniformly within a unit cube, they will almost surely define a pair of skew lines.
Synthetic geometrySynthetic geometry (sometimes referred to as axiomatic geometry or even pure geometry) is geometry without the use of coordinates. It relies on the axiomatic method for proving all results from a few basic properties initially called postulate, and at present called axioms. The term "synthetic geometry" has been coined only after the 17th century, and the introduction by René Descartes of the coordinate method, which was called analytic geometry.
Absolute geometryAbsolute geometry is a geometry based on an axiom system for Euclidean geometry without the parallel postulate or any of its alternatives. Traditionally, this has meant using only the first four of Euclid's postulates. The term was introduced by János Bolyai in 1832. It is sometimes referred to as neutral geometry, as it is neutral with respect to the parallel postulate. The first four of Euclid's postulates are now considered insufficient as a basis of Euclidean geometry, so other systems (such as Hilbert's axioms without the parallel axiom) are used instead.
MathematicsMathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them.
Degenerate conicIn geometry, a degenerate conic is a conic (a second-degree plane curve, defined by a polynomial equation of degree two) that fails to be an irreducible curve. This means that the defining equation is factorable over the complex numbers (or more generally over an algebraically closed field) as the product of two linear polynomials. Using the alternative definition of the conic as the intersection in three-dimensional space of a plane and a double cone, a conic is degenerate if the plane goes through the vertex of the cones.
Three-dimensional spaceIn geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (coordinates) are required to determine the position of a point. Most commonly, it is the three-dimensional Euclidean space, the Euclidean n-space of dimension n=3 that models physical space. More general three-dimensional spaces are called 3-manifolds. Technically, a tuple of n numbers can be understood as the Cartesian coordinates of a location in a n-dimensional Euclidean space.
Steiner ellipseIn geometry, the Steiner ellipse of a triangle, also called the Steiner circumellipse to distinguish it from the Steiner inellipse, is the unique circumellipse (ellipse that touches the triangle at its vertices) whose center is the triangle's centroid. Named after Jakob Steiner, it is an example of a circumconic. By comparison the circumcircle of a triangle is another circumconic that touches the triangle at its vertices, but is not centered at the triangle's centroid unless the triangle is equilateral.
Circular symmetryIn geometry, circular symmetry is a type of continuous symmetry for a planar object that can be rotated by any arbitrary angle and map onto itself. Rotational circular symmetry is isomorphic with the circle group in the complex plane, or the special orthogonal group SO(2), and unitary group U(1). Reflective circular symmetry is isomorphic with the orthogonal group O(2). A 2-dimensional object with circular symmetry would consist of concentric circles and annular domains.
ConeA cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines connecting a common point, the apex, to all of the points on a base that is in a plane that does not contain the apex. Depending on the author, the base may be restricted to be a circle, any one-dimensional quadratic form in the plane, any closed one-dimensional figure, or any of the above plus all the enclosed points.
