curve obtained by intersecting a cone and a plane From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In geometry, when a cone and a plane intersect, a conic section results.
There are three different types of sections, the parabola, the hyperbola and the ellipse. The circle is a special case of an ellipse. Sometimes the circle is mentioned as a fourth type, because calculating with a circle is easier than with an ellipse, most of the time.
The conic sections are known at least since 200 BC, when Apollonius of Perga (~262 BC to ~190 BC) studied of their properties. They came to more attention when mathematicians discovered that the solutions of the two-body problem were conic sections.
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