English

Center of gravity and a characterization of parabolas

Differential Geometry 2015-02-03 v1

Abstract

Archimedes determined the center of gravity of a parabolic section as follows. For a parabolic section between a parabola and any chord ABAB on the parabola, let us denote by PP the point on the parabola where the tangent is parallel to ABAB and by VV the point where the line through PP parallel to the axis of the parabola meets the chord ABAB. Then the center GG of gravity of the section lies on PVPV called the axis of the parabolic section with PG=35PVPG=\frac{3}{5}PV. In this paper, we study strictly locally convex plane curves satisfying the above center of gravity properties. As a result, we prove that among strictly locally convex plane curves, those properties characterize parabolas.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1502.00188,
  title  = {Center of gravity and a characterization of parabolas},
  author = {Dong-Soo Kim and Young Ho Kim and Sookhee Park},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.00188},
  year   = {2015}
}

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11pages