Secant plane
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Ellipsoid_circular_sections.gif/199px-Ellipsoid_circular_sections.gif)
A secant plane is a plane containing a nontrivial section of a sphere or an ellipsoid, or such a plane that a sphere is projected onto. Secant planes are similar to tangent planes, which contact the sphere's surface at a point, while secant planes contact the surface along curves.
The two-dimensional representations of secant planes are secant lines, the lines that join two distinct points on a curve.
Applications[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Comparison_of_cartography_surface_development.svg/300px-Comparison_of_cartography_surface_development.svg.png)
Secant planes are used in map projections. The secant plane intersects a globe along a small circle with no distortion, forming a standard parallel which has true scale.[1]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Map projection - types and distortion". geokov.com. Retrieved 2016-11-02.