gone parabolic (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Or maybe the writer simply didn't know what he was talking about.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Arnold Zwicky
> Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 4:18 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: gone parabolic (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
----------------------
> -
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: gone parabolic (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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------
> -
>
> 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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