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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2015

Clerk Maxwell junior  and
Forbes
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Extract

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.

Type
Proceedings 1845-46
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 2 , 1851 , pp. 89 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1850

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References

page 90 note * Herschel on Light, Art. 232; Lloyd on Light and Vision, Chap. vii.

page 90 note † This was perfectly well shewn by Huyghens in his Traité de la Lumière, p. 111. (1690.)

page 90 note ‡ Edit. 1683, Geometria, Lib. II., p. 54.

page 91 note * Histoire des Mathematiques. First Edit. II., 102.