conic section
Sign in to savecurve obtained by intersecting a cone and a plane
AI overview
A conic section is a curve created when a flat plane cuts through a cone at different angles. These curves—which include circles, ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas—appear frequently in nature and science, making them important for understanding everything from planetary orbits to the shape of satellite dishes.
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The black boundaries of the colored regions are conic sections. Not shown is the other half of the hyperbola, which is on the unshown other half of the double cone. Conic sections visualized with torch light This diagram clarifies the different angles of the cutting planes that result in the different properties of the three types of conic section.
A 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 considered a fourth type. The ancient Greek mathematicians studied conic sections, culminating around 200 BC with Apollonius of Perga's systematic work on their properties.