Some of the lines on a hyperbolic paraboloid

 
This figure shows a finite portion of a hyperbolic paraboloid. The hyperbolic paraboloid is a quadric ruled surface, i.e. a surface of degree 2 that contains infinitely many straight lines. In fact, the hyperbolic paraboloid contains two families of straight lines.

   In this figure, finitely many lines from each of the familes are shown. The lines that belong to one family are shown in red while the lines that belong to the other family are shown in blue.

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I made the figure on this page by substituting my own data in a Geometry Center webpage.

Prof. Joel Roberts
School of Mathematics
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
USA

Office: 351 Vincent Hall
Phone: (612) 625-1076
Dept. FAX: (612) 626-2017
e-mail: roberts@math.umn.edu
http://www.math.umn.edu/~roberts