Conic Sections in The Real World

Conic Sections

By: Joshua Stines

Parabolas are Everywhere in Modern Society

some times in the things we love the most

"The parabola is the form taken by the path of any object thrown in the air, and is the mathematical curve used by engineers in designing some suspension bridges. The properties of the parabola make it the ideal shape for the reflector of an automobile headlight."

To Rainbows

"If a ray of light leaves the focus of a parobola and strikes the parabola, it will be reflected in a path parallel to the symmetry axis."

In Suspension Bridges

"Suspension bridges are capable of spanning long distances and actually are the only type of bridge to span the longest distances possible for a bridge. This is because the shape of the suspension bridge is actually one of the most stable structures there is."

And Even in Bad Video Animations

"A bouncing ball captured with a stroboscopic flash at 25 images per second. Note that the ball becomes significantly non-spherical after each bounce, especially after the first. That, along with spin and air resistance, causes the curve swept out to deviate slightly from the expected perfect parabola."

But Parabolas are not the only conic sections that exist in the real world

Hyperbolas

To Camera Lenses

And in an hourglass

"Hyperboloids of one sheet are "ruled surfaces": they are generated by straight lines. The first two links are good illustrations of how this works. Because of this feature, they resist certain kinds of mechanical fracture that other shapes would not."

Up Next

Ellipsis

oh sorry i mean

Ellipses

I"n Belarus they use planes with ellipse wings. They say it has a few benefits comparing to the simple one or double winged planes, like the wing can be less in size, it’s more firm because the ellipse form is self sustaining, also there are now air vortexes by the sides of the wings which gives up to 30% increase in power compared to the traditional planes.

"This is Qualacomm Field which is the staduim of the Sandiego Chargers. Now how this applies to conics is that the shape of this staduim is an ellipse which is one of the crosssection for aconic. The formula for an ellipse is: ( (x-h)2/A2 ) + ( (y+2)2 /B2)= 1. This equation was most likely used in the constuction of thestadium. Most all sports arenas are made in an elliptical shape in order to seat as many people as possible around a rectangular field."

And in Liquor

"Hennessy Liquor has come up with a perfect time machine of its own, it has created yet another exquisite Ellipse shaped glass that captures time and flavor like no other."

DO NOT DRINK UNLESS YOU ARE 21!!!

An Yea Again Bad Videos

"The orbits of the planets are ellipses but the eccentricities are so small for most of the planets that they look circular at first glance. For most of the planets one must measure the geometry carefully to determine that they are not circles, but ellipses of small eccentricity. Pluto and Mercury are exceptions: their orbits are sufficiently eccentric that they can be seen by inspection to not be circles."

And Finally

Wait For it

Circles

"They are circular so that they are more stable when spun around in the drive. Any other shape makes them wobble and shatter"

"The wheel is a device that makes use of circles to enables efficient movement of an object across a surface where there is a force pressing the object to the surface. Common examples are a cart pulled by a horse, and the rollers on an aircraft flap mechanism."

"Unfortunately, not all clocks are circular. The reason that most clocks are circular is because of convenience. As clocks rely on the rotation of the hands to tell time, it is simply easier for the numbers to be arranged in a circular formation around it."

In the End Conics Make the world Go round Literally

The End

A Shape that exists in modern architecture

In Russia

The shapes of the surfaces of a lens which exactly focuses a point object to a point image are hyperbolas.

In Sports

And yes even in Bad Video Clips

From Roller Coasters

The Conic That makes the video games you play spin

And Even in Clocks

The Conic that makes the wheel Possible