Confocal synonyms

Legendre, in 1783, extended Maclaurin's theorem concerning ellipsoids of revolution to the case of any spheroid of revolution where the attracted point, instead of being limited to the axis or equator, occupied any position in space; and Laplace, in his treatise Theorie du mouvement et de la figure elliptique des planetes (published in 1784), effected a still further generalization by proving, what had been suspected by Legendre, that the theorem was equally true for any confocal ellipsoids.

The varying direction of the inclining couple Pc may be realized by swinging the weight P from a crane on the ship, in a circle of radius c. But if the weight P was lowered on the ship from a crane on shore, the vessel would sink bodily a distance P/wA if P was deposited over F; but deposited anywhere else, say over Q on the water-line area, the ship would turn about a line the antipolar of Q with respect to the confocal ellipse, parallel to FF', at a distance FK from F FK= (k2-hV/A)/FQ sin QFF' (2) through an angle 0 or a slope of one in m, given by P sin B= m wA FK - W'Ak 2V hV FQ sin QFF', (3) where k denotes the radius of gyration about FF' of the water-line area.