Unpublished paper, 'A method of proving the three leading properties of the ellipse and hyperbola from a well known property of the circle' by Sir Frederick Pollock

Description

Pollock first demonstrates the well-known property of the circle, that if a tangent to the circle is drawn from a point in the diameter, and from the point of contact a line is drawn perpendicular to the diameter; and if from any point in the circumference there be drawn two lines, one to the point without the circle, and another to the foot of this perpendicular, the former of these lines will be to the latter, as the distance of the point without the circle from the centre, is to the radius of the circle.

Includes three figures in the text illustrating Pollock's method. Marked on front as 'Archives 9 March 1843 S H C [Samuel Hunter Christie]'.

Subject: Mathematics / Geometry

Received 30 January 1843 / 2 February 1843.

Written by Pollock at Guildford Street [London].

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 4 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'A method of proving the three leading properties of the ellipse and the hyperbola from a well-known property of the circle. By Sir Frederick Pollock, Knt., F. R. S., Her Majesty's Attorney General. Communicated in a letter to P. M. Roget, M. D., Secretary to the Royal Society'.

Reference number

AP/26/11

Earliest possible date

30 January 1843

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

14 pages

Format

Drawing
Manuscript