Online Encyclopedia

CYLINDER (Gr. KvAwSpos, from KvXivaet...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 690 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CYLINDER (Gr. KvAwSpos, from KvXivaety, to roll)  . A cylindrical
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surface, or briefly a cylinder, is the surface traced out by a
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line, named the generatrix, which moves parallel to itself and always passes through the circumference of a curve, named the directrix; the name cylinder is also given to the solid contained between such a surface and two parallel planes which intersect a generatrix . A " right cylinder " is the solid traced out by a rectangle which revolves about one of its sides, or the curved surface of this solid; the surface may also be defined as the locus of a line which passes through the circumference of a circle, and is always perpendicular to the
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plane of the circle . If the moving line be not perpendicular to the plane of the circle, but moves parallel to itself, and always passes through the circumference, it traces an " oblique cylinder." The " axis " of a circular cylinder is the line joining the centres of two circular sections; it is the line through the centre of the directrix parallel to the generators . The characteristic
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property of all cylindrical surfaces is that the tangent planes are parallel to the axis . They are " developable " surfaces, i.e. they can be applied to a plane surface without crinkling or tearing (see SURFACE) . Any section of a cylinder which contains the axis is termed a "
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principal section "; in the case of the solids this section is a rectangle; in the case of the surfaces, two parallel straight lines . A section of the right cylinder parallel to the
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base is obviously a circle; any other section, excepting those limited by two 'CYLLENE-CYNEWULF .. generators, is an ellipse . This last proposition may be stated"in the form:—" The orthogonal
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projection of a circle is an ellipse "; and it permits the ready deduction of many properties of the ellipse from the circle . The section of an oblique cylinder by a plane perpendicular to the principal section, and inclined to the axis at the same angle as the base, is named the " subcontrary section," and is always a circle; any other section is an ellipse . The mensuration of the cylinder was worked out by Archimedes, who showed that the
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volume of any cylinder was equal to the product of the
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area of the base into the height of the solid, and that the area of the curved surface was equal to that of a rectangle having its sides equal to the circumference of the base; and to the height of the solid .

If the base be a circle of

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radius r, and the height h, the volume is srr2h and the area of the curved surface 2arh . Archimedes also deduced relations between the sphere (q.v.) and cone (q.v.) and the circumscribing cylinder . The name " cylindroid has been given to two different surfaces . Thus it is a cylinder having equal and parallel elliptical bases; i.e. the surface traced out by an ellipse moving parallel to itself so that every point passes along a straight line, or by a line moving parallel to itself and always • passing through the circumference of a fixed ellipse . The name was also given by Arthur Cayley to the conoidal cubic surface which has for its equation z(x2-I-y2) = 2mxy; every point on this surface lies on the line given by the intersection of the planes y=x tan 0, z=m sin 20, for by eliminating 0 we obtain the equation to the surface .

End of Article: CYLINDER (Gr. KvAwSpos, from KvXivaety, to roll)
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