Conical Differentiation

Abstract

This paper follows naturally a note on parabolic differentiation (2) in which the parabolically differentiable points in the real affine plane were discussed. In the parabolic case, the four-parameter family of parabolas in the affine plane led to three differentiability conditions. In the present paper, the five-parameter family of conies in the real projective plane gives rise to four differentiability conditions and a point of an arc in the projective plane is called conically differentiable if these four conditions are satisfied. The differentiable points are classified by the nature of their families of osculating conies, superosculating conies, and their ultraosculating conies.