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  2. Pole and polar - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_and_polar

    Conversely, the polar line (or polar) of a point Q in a circle C is the line L such that its closest point P to the center of the circle is the inversion of Q in C. If a point A lies on the polar line q of another point Q, then Q lies on the polar line a of A. More generally, the polars of all the points on the line q must pass through its pole Q.

  3. Polar coordinate system - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_coordinate_system

    Points in the polar coordinate system with pole O and polar axis L. In green, the point with radial coordinate 3 and angular coordinate 60 degrees or (3, 60°). In blue, the point (4, 210°). In mathematics, the polar coordinate system specifies a given point in a plane by using a distance and an angle as its two coordinates. These are

  4. Longitude - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude

    Hipparchus (2nd century BCE) used a coordinate system that assumed a spherical Earth, and divided it into 360° as we still do today. His prime meridian passed through Alexandria . [ 3 ] : 31 He also proposed a method of determining longitude by comparing the local time of a lunar eclipse at two different places, thus demonstrating an ...

  5. Ellipsoidal coordinates - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsoidal_coordinates

    Ellipsoidal coordinates are a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system (,,) that generalizes the two-dimensional elliptic coordinate system. Unlike most three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate systems that feature quadratic coordinate surfaces , the ellipsoidal coordinate system is based on confocal quadrics .

  6. Ellipse - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse

    An ellipse (red) obtained as the intersection of a cone with an inclined plane. Ellipse: notations Ellipses: examples with increasing eccentricity. In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant.

  7. Coordinate systems for the hyperbolic plane - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinate_systems_for_the...

    The polar coordinate system is a two-dimensional coordinate system in which each point on a plane is determined by a distance from a reference point and an angle from a reference direction. The reference point (analogous to the origin of a Cartesian system ) is called the pole , and the ray from the pole in the reference direction is the polar ...

  8. Earth ellipsoid - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_ellipsoid

    The ellipsoid is defined by the equatorial axis (a) and the polar axis (b); their radial difference is slightly more than 21 km, or 0.335% of a (which is not quite 6,400 km). Many methods exist for determination of the axes of an Earth ellipsoid, ranging from meridian arcs up to modern satellite geodesy or the analysis and interconnection of ...

  9. Elliptic coordinate system - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_coordinate_system

    In geometry, the elliptic coordinate system is a two-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system in which the coordinate lines are confocal ellipses and hyperbolae. The two foci F 1 {\displaystyle F_{1}} and F 2 {\displaystyle F_{2}} are generally taken to be fixed at − a {\displaystyle -a} and + a {\displaystyle +a} , respectively, on the x ...