Monday, August 17, 2009

Number of Tangents

Dear All

Today a student asked me a question: How many tangents can we draw at a point on a sphere? We are well aware that to a point on a circle, the answer is ONE.
You may imagine a football (sphere) lying on the floor (tangent plane).
What are your views? Do share.

3 comments:

  1. sir,
    i think for a point on a sphere there has to be a single tangential plane or infinite tangential lines lying on the same plane.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Infinite no. of tangents for the infinite no of circles passing thru the point of contact of ground n football....

    ReplyDelete

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