Affine construction of conic sections from their five points

MaRDI QIDQ6617254zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Ákos G. Horváth

Publication date 10 October 2024

Published in Journal for Geometry and Graphics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

zbMATH Keywords

affine constructionconic sectionellipsehyperbolaparabola

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Methodology of mathematics (00A35) General theory of linear incidence geometry and projective geometries (51A05) Geometric constructions in real or complex geometry (51M15) Descriptive geometry (51N05)

Review text

This paper is devoted to an elementary construction of a conic section passing through five given points in general position. No use is made of Pascal's theorem, nor of any notion from projective geometry. The construction proceeds inside affine geometry and treats the ellipse, hyperbola, and parabola case separately. The construction is based on the fact that the conic section is the following locus of Apollonius: Given four lines $a, b, c, d$ in general position, the locus of all points $P$ in the plane for which the ratio $\frac{d(P, a)d(P, c)}{d(P, b)d(P, d)}$ is fixed forms a conic section.

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Cites work

• A conic can be drawn through any five points.
• The universe of conics. From the ancient Greeks to 21st century developments
• Treatise on conic sections. Edited in modern notation, with introductions including an essay on the earlier history of the subject, by T. L. Heath.

Cited in

(1)

• Center of the ellipse at the base of a cone with a constant base area

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