gone parabolic (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Dec 2, 2010, at 1:35 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> Isn't there something wrong in the first place of thinking of
> increasing curvature with a parabola?  As the arms of a parabola move
> further away from the center, doesn't the curvature continually
> diminish and approach a straight line?
>
> The analogy of ever increasing values to a parabola seems to me
> instead the progression of the arms to infinity, as contrasted with
> the other conic section, the ellipse, which closes upon itself.

i'm still not getting the imagery here at all.  sounds like the original image was to one arm of a hyperbola, not to a parabola at all.

arnold

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