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  2. Tangent - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangent

    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 ...

  3. Envelope (mathematics) - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope_(mathematics)

    In geometry, an envelope of a planar family of curves is a curve that is tangent to each member of the family at some point, and these points of tangency together form the whole envelope. Classically, a point on the envelope can be thought of as the intersection of two " infinitesimally adjacent" curves, meaning the limit of intersections of ...

  4. Osculating curve - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osculating_curve

    Examples of osculating curves of different orders include: The tangent line to a curve C at a point p, the osculating curve from the family of straight lines. The tangent line shares its first derivative with C and therefore has first-order contact with C. [1] [2] [4] The osculating circle to C at p, the osculating curve from the family of circles.

  5. Analytic geometry - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_geometry

    In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Informally, it is a line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More precisely, a straight line is said to be a tangent of a curve y = f(x) at a point x = c on the curve if the ...

  6. Contact (mathematics) - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(mathematics)

    An osculating curve from a given family of curves is a curve that has the highest possible order of contact with a given curve at a given point; for instance a tangent line is an osculating curve from the family of lines, and has first-order contact with the given curve; an osculating circle is an osculating curve from the family of circles ...

  7. Asymptote - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote

    In analytic geometry, an asymptote (/ ˈ æ s ɪ m p t oʊ t /) of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the x or y coordinates tends to infinity. In projective geometry and related contexts, an asymptote of a curve is a line which is tangent to the curve at a point at infinity ...

  8. Osculating circle - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osculating_circle

    An osculating circle is a circle that best approximates the curvature of a curve at a specific point. It is tangent to the curve at that point and has the same curvature as the curve at that point. [2] The osculating circle provides a way to understand the local behavior of a curve and is commonly used in differential geometry and calculus.

  9. Tangential angle - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangential_angle

    The tangential angle φ for an arbitrary curve A in P. In geometry, the tangential angle of a curve in the Cartesian plane, at a specific point, is the angle between the tangent line to the curve at the given point and the x-axis. [1] (Some authors define the angle as the deviation from the direction of the curve at some fixed starting point.