Conic sections are formed on a plane when that plane slices through a pair of cones stacked tip to tip. Whether the result is a circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola depends only upon the angle at which the plane slices through. Conic sections are described mathematically by quadratic equations—some of which contain more than one variable.
When a double c-napped cone is sliced by a plane, the cross section formed by the plane and cone is called a
conic section. The four main conic sections are the circle, the parabola, the ellipse, and the hyperbola (see Figure
1 ).
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Figure 1
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Creating conic sections.
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Linear Sentences in One Variable
Conic Sections
