orthogonal trajectories - sci.math

Message from discussion orthogonal trajectories

Angus Rodgers

View profile

More options Jul 24, 8:03 am

Newsgroups: sci.math

From: Angus Rodgers <twir...@bigfoot.com>

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:03:54 +0100

Local: Thurs, Jul 24 2008 8:03 am

Subject: Re: orthogonal trajectories

  Reply to author
  |
  Forward
  | Print
  | View thread
  | Show original
  | Report this message
  | Find messages by this author
  

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?)

--
Angus Rodgers
(twirlip@ eats spam; reply to angusrod@)
Contains mild peril

Reply to author Forward