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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Secant Line

Secant Line

TangentSecantLine
A secant line, also simply called a secant, is a line passing through two points of a curve. As the two points are brought together (or, more precisely, as one is brought towards the other), the secant line tends to a tangent line. In abstract mathematics, the points connected by a secant line can be eitherreal or complex conjugate imaginary.
In geometry, a secant line commonly refers to a line that intersects a circle at exactly two points (Rhoad et al. 1984, p. 429). There are a number of interesting theorems related to secant lines.
SecantTheorems
In the left figure above,
 theta=1/2(arcAC+arcBD),
while in the right figure,
 phi=1/2(arcRT-arcSQ),
where arcAB denotes the angular measure of the arc AB