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The semi-minor axis (minor semiaxis) of an ellipse or hyperbola is a line segment that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. For the special case of a circle, the lengths of the semi-axes are both equal to the radius of the circle.
A circle viewed from a side angle looks like an ellipse: that is, the ellipse is the image of a circle under parallel or perspective projection. The ellipse is also the simplest Lissajous figure formed when the horizontal and vertical motions are sinusoids with the same frequency: a similar effect leads to elliptical polarization of light in ...
The second moment of area, also known as area moment of inertia, is a geometrical property of an area which reflects how its points are distributed with respect to an arbitrary axis. The unit of dimension of the second moment of area is length to fourth power, L 4, and should not be confused with the mass moment of inertia.
The transformation sends the circle to an ellipse by stretching or shrinking the horizontal and vertical diameters to the major and minor axes of the ellipse. The square gets sent to a rectangle circumscribing the ellipse. The ratio of the area of the circle to the square is π /4, which means the ratio of the ellipse to the rectangle is also π /4
An ellipse has two axes and two foci. Unlike most other elementary shapes, such as the circle and square, there is no algebraic equation to determine the perimeter of an ellipse. Throughout history, a large number of equations for approximations and estimates have been made for the perimeter of an ellipse.
In an ellipse with major axis 2a and minor axis 2b, the vertices on the major axis have the smallest radius of curvature of any points, =; and the vertices on the minor axis have the largest radius of curvature of any points, R = a 2 / b .
which, as follows from basic trigonometric identities, are equivalent expressions (i.e. the formula for S oblate can be used to calculate the surface area of a prolate ellipsoid and vice versa). In both cases e may again be identified as the eccentricity of the ellipse formed by the cross section through the symmetry axis. (See ellipse).
For example, on a triaxial ellipsoid, the meridional eccentricity is that of the ellipse formed by a section containing both the longest and the shortest axes (one of which will be the polar axis), and the equatorial eccentricity is the eccentricity of the ellipse formed by a section through the centre, perpendicular to the polar axis (i.e. in ...