You've probably seen this shape before. It is several straight lines whose outline seems to be curved. Connect the following pairs of points with segments:

(1,0) and (0,8)
(2,0) and (0,7)
(3,0) and (0,6)
...
(8,0) and (0,1)

The 8 segments seem to form the outline a curve, but what curve? Is it a circle or maybe one branch of a hyperbola? Some other conic? Does it's equation have some other nice form?

(In reply to Pen and acrylics by Steve Herman)

'My answer is different from broll's, and he is usually right,...'

I wish!

I didn't actually work out the formula for the 8-thread version, but it should be around y=0.0786x^2-0.7071x+2.909, when rotated to open upwards.

It's quite possible that the expressions are equivalent, in which case yours is much neater.

Posted by broll on 2017-04-19 12:46:46