History
The word "hyperbola" derives from the Greek ὑπερβολή, meaning "over-thrown" or "excessive", from which the English term hyperbole also derives. The term hyperbola is believed to have been coined by Apollonius of Perga (c. 262–c. 190 BC) in his definitive work on the conic sections, the Conics. For comparison, the other two general conic sections, the ellipse and the parabola, derive from the corresponding Greek words for "deficient" and "comparable"; these terms may refer to the eccentricity of these curves, which is greater than one (hyperbola), less than one (ellipse) and exactly one (parabola).
Read more about this topic: Hyperbola
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
—Mao Zedong (18931976)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (18831955)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (19121989)