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1 results

  • 1. On the Description of Oval Curves, and those having a plurality of Foci

  • Clerk Maxwell, junior, Forbes
  • Journal:
    Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh / Volume 2 / 1851
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 March 2015, pp. 89-91
    Print publication:
    1851

  • Mr Clerk Maxwell ingeniously suggests the extension of the common theory of the foci of the conic sections to curves of a higher degree of complication in the following manner:—

    (1.) As in the ellipse and hyperbola, any point in the curve has the sum or difference of two lines drawn from two points or foci = a constant quantity, so the author infers, that curves to a certain degree analogous, may be described and determined by the condition that the simple distance from one focus plus a multiple distance from the other, may be = a constant quantity; or more generally, m times the one distance + n times the other = constant.