In geometry, an oval or ovoid (from Latin ovum, 'egg') is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse. Unlike other curves, the term 'oval' is not well-defined and many distinct curves are commonly called ovals. These curves have in common that: In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... A carton of free-range chicken eggs Ostrich egg Bird eggs are a common food source. ... The ellipse and some of its mathematical properties. ...

• they are differentiable (smooth-looking), simple (not self-intersecting), closed, plane curves;
• their shape does not depart too much from that of a circle or an ellipse, and
• there is at least one axis of symmetry.

Two examples of ovals are shown below. In (a), a semicircle is joined to half an ellipse while in (b), two semicircles are connected with straight line segments. Other ad hoc constructions are often encountered as well. In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture our intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... In geometry, two objects are of the same shape if one can be transformed to another (ignoring color) by dilating (that is, by multiplying all distances by the same factor) and then, if necessary, rotating and translating. ... A circle, in Euclidean geometry, is the set of all points at a fixed distance, called the radius, from a fixed point, the centre. ... The ellipse and some of its mathematical properties. ... The axis of symmetry of a two-dimensional figure is a line such that, if a perpendicular is constructed, any two points lying on the perpendicular at equal distances from the axis of symmetry are identical. ... A semicircle is a two-dimensional geometric shape that forms half of a circle. ... A line, or straight line, can be described as an (infinitely) thin, (infinitely) long, perfectly straight curve (the term curve in mathematics includes straight curves). In Euclidean geometry, exactly one line can be found that passes through any two points. ...

(a) Chicken egg	(b) Speed skating track

Other examples of ovals described elsewhere include: Image File history File links Oval1. ... Image File history File links Oval2. ...

• Cassini ovals
• elliptic curves
• super ellipse

In mathematics, a Cassini oval is a set of points in the plane such that each point p on the oval bears a special relation to two other, fixed points q1 and q2, namely that the product is constant. ... In mathematics, an elliptic curve is a plane curve defined by an equation of the form y2 = x3 + a x + b, which is non-singular; that is, its graph has no cusps or self-intersections. ... A superellipse is a geometrical figure which in a cartesian coordinate system can be described as the set of all points (x, y) with where and and are the radii of the oval shape. ...

Egg shape

The shape of an egg is approximately an oblate ellipsoid, but, while keeping cylindrical symmetry, as illustrated above, there is not quite symmetry in a plane perpendicular to the long axis. The term egg-shaped is typically used taking this asymmetry into account, but it may also simply mean oblate ellipsoid. It can also be used for a 2D shape. 3D rendering of an ellipsoid In mathematics, an ellipsoid is a type of quadric that is a higher dimensional analogue of an ellipse. ...

Projective planes

In the theory of projective planes, oval is used to mean a set of q + 1 non-collinear points in PG(2,q), the projective plane over the finite field with q elements. See oval (projective plane). Projective plane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... A line, or straight line, is, roughly speaking, an (infinitely) thin, (infinitely) long, straight geometrical object, i. ... In abstract algebra, a finite field or Galois field (so named in honor of Evariste Galois) is a field that contains only finitely many elements. ... In PG(2,q), with q a prime power, an oval is a set of points, no three of which are collinear. ...