Title: The toric sections: a simple introduction,
Abstract: We review, from a didactic point of view, the definition of a toric section
and the different shapes it can take. We'll then discuss some properties of
this curve, investigate its analogies and differences with the most renowned
conic section and show how to build its general quartic equation. A curious and
unexpected result was to find that, with some algebraic manipulation, a toric
section can also be obtained as the intersection of a cylinder with a cone.
Finally we'll show how it is possible to construct and represent toric sections
in the 3D Graphics view of Geogebra. In the article only elementary algebra is
used, and the requirements to follow it are just some notion of goniometry and
of tridimensional analytic geometry.