Applications of the Hyperbola

Some comets travel on hyperbolic (not elliptical) trajectories with the Sun at one focus — unlike elliptical-orbit comets, these pass the Sun only once and never return. Hyperbolic profiles also appear in architecture (e.g. the Mumbai Airport terminal), in the cross-section of a planetarium, in locating ships or aircraft from time-difference signals received at multiple stations (Example 5.40 works this out directly), and in the flared cros …