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RECIPROCAL FIGURES

Volume 17 · 69 words · 1810 Edition

Geometry, those which have the antecedents and consequents of the same ratio in both figures.

Reciprocal Proportion, is when in four numbers the fourth is less than the second by so much as the third is greater than the first, and vice versa. See Proportion and Arithmetic, chap. vi. Great use is made of this reciprocal proportion by Sir Isaac Newton and others, in demonstrating the laws of motion.