Monday, April 9, 2012

Conic Section Orbits - Greg Egan

http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/SCIENCE/ConicSectionOrbits/ConicSectionOrbits0.pngConic Section Orbits

"The aim of this page is to assemble a variety of simple proofs for the wonderful fact, first proved by Isaac Newton, that the orbits of bodies subject to an inverse-square force are conic sections: ellipses, circles, parabolas, hyperbolas or straight lines.

Although conic sections are defined in the first instance as the curves produced when a plane intersects a cone, these curves have a wealth of well-known properties that characterise them equally well. The idea of this page is to explore the relationship between the inverse-square force law and as many of these properties as possible."


5 out of 5

http://www.gregegan.net/SCIENCE/ConicSectionOrbits/ConicSectionOrbits.html