As A Degenerate Ellipse
A line segment can be viewed as a degenerate case of an ellipse in which the semiminor axis goes to zero, the foci go to the end points, and the eccentricity goes to one. As a degenerate orbit this is a radial elliptic trajectory.
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Famous quotes containing the words degenerate and/or ellipse:
“He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)
“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)