Revisiting floating bodies
- Ciaurri, Ó. 1
- Fernández, E. 1
- Roncal, L. 1
-
1
Universidad de La Rioja
info
ISSN: 0723-0869
Año de publicación: 2016
Volumen: 34
Número: 4
Páginas: 396-422
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: Expositiones Mathematicae
Resumen
The conic sections, as well as the solids obtained by revolving these curves, and many of their surprising properties, were already studied by Greek mathematicians since at least the fourth century B.C. Some of these properties come to the light, or are rediscovered, from time to time. In this paper we characterize the conic sections as the plane curves whose tangent lines cut off from a certain similar curve segments of constant area. We also characterize some quadrics as the surfaces whose tangent planes cut off from a certain similar surface compact sets of constant volume. Our work is developed in the most general multidimensional case. © 2016 Elsevier GmbH