Ellipse
In mathematics, an ellipse (from Greek ἔλλειψις elleipsis, a "falling short") is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis. An ellipse is also the locus of all points of the plane whose distances to two fixed points add to the same constant. The name ἔλλειψις was given by Apollonius of Perga in his Conics, emphasizing the connection of the curve with "application of areas".
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Famous quotes containing the word ellipse:
“The ellipse is as aimless as that,
Stretching invisibly into the future so as to reappear
In our present. Its flexing is its account,
Return to the point of no return.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)