Recently, i was in the Albany capitol building on the million dollar staircase, and i looked on the cieling. There was a parabolic arch with the vertex a bit below the cieilng, and beyond that a cieling formed a kind of dome. The interesting thing about this was that the light, which was situated right in front of the arch, created a shadow on the dome behind it that, instead of creating a parabolic shadow, created quite the opposite, two shadowy curves going opposite directions, so that they came together at a cusp, and not a curve. How could this happen?
2006-12-06
14:03:42
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1 answers
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asked by
Curious George
1
in
Mathematics