Shapes with several focus points

1.3k Views Asked by At

I recently understood the meaning of focus points and how to abuse them for generating some fun games like Loop. (Reading pool backwards)

In Loop one uses a pool table in the shape of an ellipse and puts the hole in of its focus points. Thus one can always hole a ball by making it go through its other focus point.

I believe in 2-dimensional there are just ellipse to have this property, also that an object can't have more than 2 focus points. However I cannot prove it.

Therefore I would like to read up on that topic. I am particularly interested, which kind of properties an n-dimensional shape, table or whatever has to fulfill for it to have 2,3 or more focus points.

As always thanks in advance for any constructive comment or answer.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On BEST ANSWER

I believe in $2$ dimensions there are just ellipses that have this property, also that an object can't have more than $2$ focus points.

You believe wrongly ! You can have as many foci as you want, even in $2$D, and the shape thus obtained is called an n-ellipse or a “multifocal ellipse”. My advice to you is to do what I did: Go to the Desmos page, draw two points at $(\pm1,0)$, and a third one of variable coordinates which is mobile $($you will have to use sliders$)$. Then type in the equation of the $3$-ellipse, and modify the position of the last point to inspect its behavior.