Quartic plane curve
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A quartic plane curve is a plane curve of the fourth degree. It can be defined by the defined by a quartic equation:
- Ax4 + By4 + Cx3y + Dx2y2 + Exy3 + Fx3 + Gy3 + Hx2y + Ixy2 + Jx2 + Ky2 + Lxy + Mx + Ny + P = 0
This equation has fifteen constants. However, any one of them can be set equal to one without changing the shape of the curve. Therefore, quartic curves form a space of dimension fourteen. It also follows that there is exactly one quartic curve that passes through a set of fourteen distinct points.
A quartic curve can have a maximum of:
- Four connected components
- Twenty-eight bi-tangents
- Three ordinary double points
[edit] Examples
- The bean curve is a special case of the crooked egg curve
- A spiric section is a special case of a toric section