homology
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I suddenly realized that the very notion of a directrix seems odd to me.
(1) I don't know any physical significance of such a thing
(2) How anyone came to define the parabola as such
Any help? I read some older posts about the history of the directrix/focus definitions of the conic sections and I can see the idea of unifying the conics through the ratio of distances from a point to the focus and from the point to the directrix but perhaps there is something more, something deeper, something physical?
Cheers,
Kevin
(1) I don't know any physical significance of such a thing
(2) How anyone came to define the parabola as such
Any help? I read some older posts about the history of the directrix/focus definitions of the conic sections and I can see the idea of unifying the conics through the ratio of distances from a point to the focus and from the point to the directrix but perhaps there is something more, something deeper, something physical?
Cheers,
Kevin
