12 December, 2007

Self-Orthogonal Visualisation



A family of ellipse whose one member is shown in the figure is not expected to be self-orthogonal. But, when the equation


is analysed using differential equation technique, one finds that the equation does represent self-orthogonal trajectory. How does one visualise this type of trajectory?

The answer lies in the possible values of which is a parameter or arbitrary constant. The expression can become negative for several negative values of and hence the curve can become hyperbola. Now, one can visualise self-orthogonality in the following manner:
It can be seen that the curves above intersect at 90 degrees.

 

© Manish Verma | IIT JEE Online Coures