In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the sides of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the vertex of the angle. Angles formed by two rays are also known as plane angles as they lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles are also formed by the intersection of two planes; these are called dihedral angles. Two intersecting curves may also define an angle, which is the angle of the rays lying tangent to the respective curves at their point of intersection.
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. Usually, the radius is required to be a positive number. A circle with is a degenerate case. This article is about circles in Euclidean geometry, and, in particular, the Euclidean plane, except where otherwise noted.
A sphere is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. Formally, a sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance r from a given point in three-dimensional space. That given point is the centre of the sphere, and r is the sphere's radius. The earliest known mentions of spheres appear in the work of the ancient Greek mathematicians.
In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if their intersection forms right angles at the point of intersection called a foot. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the perpendicular symbol, ⟂. Perpendicular intersections can happen between two lines, between a line and a plane, and between two planes.
In mathematics, a curve is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight.
In geometry, a solid angle is a measure of the amount of the field of view from some particular point that a given object covers. That is, it is a measure of how large the object appears to an observer looking from that point. The point from which the object is viewed is called the apex of the solid angle, and the object is said to subtend its solid angle at that point.
In geometry, bisection is the division of something into two equal or congruent parts. Usually it involves a bisecting line, also called a bisector. The most often considered types of bisectors are the segment bisector and the angle bisector.
In plane Euclidean geometry, a rhombus is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The rhombus is often called a "diamond", after the diamonds suit in playing cards which resembles the projection of an octahedral diamond, or a lozenge, though the former sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 60° angle, and the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle.
A chord of a circle is a straight line segment whose endpoints both lie on a circular arc. If a chord were to be extended infinitely on both directions into a line, the object is a secant line. More generally, a chord is a line segment joining two points on any curve, for instance, an ellipse. A chord that passes through a circle's center point is the circle's diameter. The word chord is from the Latin chorda meaning bowstring.
In geometry, a circular segment, also known as a disk segment, is a region of a disk which is "cut off" from the rest of the disk by a secant or a chord. More formally, a circular segment is a region of two-dimensional space that is bounded by a circular arc and by the circular chord connecting the endpoints of the arc.
A central angle is an angle whose apex (vertex) is the center O of a circle and whose legs (sides) are radii intersecting the circle in two distinct points A and B. Central angles are subtended by an arc between those two points, and the arc length is the central angle of a circle of radius one. The central angle is also known as the arc's angular distance. The arc length spanned by a central angle on a sphere is called spherical distance.
In geometry, an inscribed angle is the angle formed in the interior of a circle when two chords intersect on the circle. It can also be defined as the angle subtended at a point on the circle by two given points on the circle.
In geometry, a curve of constant width is a simple closed curve in the plane whose width is the same in all directions. The shape bounded by a curve of constant width is a body of constant width or an orbiform, the name given to these shapes by Leonhard Euler. Standard examples are the circle and the Reuleaux triangle. These curves can also be constructed using circular arcs centered at crossings of an arrangement of lines, as the involutes of certain curves, or by intersecting circles centered on a partial curve.
Arc length is the distance between two points along a section of a curve.
In geometry, Poncelet's closure theorem, also known as Poncelet's porism, states that whenever a polygon is inscribed in one conic section and circumscribes another one, the polygon must be part of an infinite family of polygons that are all inscribed in and circumscribe the same two conics. It is named after French engineer and mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who wrote about it in 1822; however, the triangular case was discovered significantly earlier, in 1746 by William Chapple.
A circular arc is the arc of a circle between a pair of distinct points. If the two points are not directly opposite each other, one of these arcs, the minor arc, subtends an angle at the centre of the circle that is less than π radians ; and the other arc, the major arc, subtends an angle greater than π radians. The arc of a circle is defined as the part or segment of the circumference of a circle. A straight line that connects the two ends of the arc is known as a chord of a circle. If the length of an arc is exactly half of the circle, it is known as a semicircular arc.
In hyperbolic geometry, a hypercycle, hypercircle or equidistant curve is a curve whose points have the same orthogonal distance from a given straight line.
In geometry, a line segment is a part of a straight line that is bounded by two distinct end points, and contains every point on the line that is between its endpoints. The length of a line segment is given by the Euclidean distance between its endpoints. A closed line segment includes both endpoints, while an open line segment excludes both endpoints; a half-open line segment includes exactly one of the endpoints. In geometry, a line segment is often denoted using a line above the symbols for the two endpoints.
Jyā, koṭi-jyā and utkrama-jyā are three trigonometric functions introduced by Indian mathematicians and astronomers. The earliest known Indian treatise containing references to these functions is Surya Siddhanta. These are functions of arcs of circles and not functions of angles. Jyā and koti-jyā are closely related to the modern trigonometric functions of sine and cosine. In fact, the origins of the modern terms of "sine" and "cosine" have been traced back to the Sanskrit words jyā and koti-jyā.
The quadratrix or trisectrix of Hippias is a curve which is created by a uniform motion. It is one of the oldest examples for a kinematic curve. Its discovery is attributed to the Greek sophist Hippias of Elis, who used it around 420 BC in an attempt to solve the angle trisection problem. Later around 350 BC Dinostratus used it in an attempt to solve the problem of squaring the circle.
