orthogonal trajectories- - sci.math

Message from discussion orthogonal trajectories-

JEMebius

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More options Jul 25, 1:19 am

Newsgroups: sci.math

From: JEMebius <jemeb...@xs4all.nl>

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:19:30 +0100

Local: Fri, Jul 25 2008 1:19 am

Subject: Re: orthogonal trajectories-

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Angus Rodgers wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:52:26 -0700 (PDT), conrad
> <con...@lawyer.com> wrote:

>> I'm showing that a given family of curves are
>> orthogonal trajectories of each other.

>> I have the two curves:
>> x^2 + y^2 = ax
>> x^2 + y^2 = by

>> It is said that the two circles intersect
>> at the origin. How is this evident
>> other than by plugging in 0?

> Plugging in (0, 0) for (x, y) and seeing that the result is 0 in
> both cases seems about as evident a method as one could wish for!
> What worries you about it? (Something to do with orthogonality?)

Both equations have a zero constant term.

Johan E. Mebius

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