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today i learned the catenary (the shape of a hanging cable or chain) is just the hyperbolic cosine. what the hell. i thought it was one of those shapes you could only get accurately with a physics simulation or something but its just cosh

@typhlosion it probably does get less nice if the cable isn't of uniform density
-F

@Hearth well yeah but like, if you're like me and want to do things like "generative art involving stuff like hanging power cables" and you know in the back of your head using a parabola would be *just ever so slightly wrong*, this is a thing you care about having a simple answer to. and its just hyperbolic cosine

@typhlosion Sounds like how you can make a perfect ellipse by sticking two strings into the ground, trying both to a pen and then drawing the shape

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