内容

目次

1. Beauty and the beast; 2. Life at infinity; 3. How to gift-wrap ahyperbola; 4. The cube; 5. The other foci: a well kept secret; 6. Arehyperbolas really ellipses?; 7. Stakes and strings; 8. Directrices, new andold; 9. Conics in general position; 10. A beautiful mathematical universe;11. A most excellent theorem; 12. The big view; 13. Curvature; 14. Curvatureof conics; 15. Photons and conics; 16. How conics solved a 2000-year-oldquestion; 17. Waves and conics; Appendix 1 some conics formulas; Appendix 2Topology: a quick handshake.