Re: OT: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
| From: | tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, January 8, 2006, 21:34 |
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--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, caeruleancentaur
<caeruleancentaur@Y...> wrote:
>
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...>
wrote:
>
> >The original meaning is apparently "comparatively long along one
> >axis", which is close enough to how I'd use it. The archetypical
> >oblong shapes would be ovals and whatever the 3D shape you get if
> you >rotate an oval around its longest axis is called.
>
>
> American Heritage Dictionary:
>
> 1) Having a long dimension, especially having one of two
> perpendicular dimensions, as length or width, greater than the
> other, elongated.
>
> 2) Having the shape of or resembling a rectangle or an ellipse.
>
> I don't think that solves anything!! It seems as though definition
> one would fit shapes like a lozenge.
>
> BTW, the shape one gets when rotating an oval around its longest
> axis is called a watermelon.
(LoL!)
Actually it's called a Prolate Ellipsoid.
The one you get by rotating the ellipse around its minor axis, is
called an Oblate Ellipsoid.
An Ellipsoid with three unequal axes is just called an Ellipsoid; the
other two are distinguished as Ellipsoids of Revolution.
"Oval" (meaning "egg-shaped") actually has a particular mathematical
meaning in Projective Geometry; but other than that, "oval" is used
to denote any roughly egg-shaped curve that is not an ellipse (for
instance, "the ovals of Cassini", obtained as plane cross-sections of
a torus.)
Tom H.C. in MI