Friday, August 12, 2011

Construction of a tangent line to a hyperbola?

I don't believe it's possible because the radius of curvature of the hyperbola (or any other curve that's not circular) is constantly changing. You have no way of constructing a perpendicular line from the point on the hyperbola whose slope you want. You must know the point on the hyperbola to determine the correct slope so that construction of a parallel line is possible.

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