Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-1/1/d/solution

Put . For , elimination of gives
These are oblate spheroids with equatorial radius and polar radius , flattened along the axis. At the limiting surface is the disk , .
For , elimination of instead gives
These are one-sheet hyperboloids of revolution, restricted to their upper half for and lower half for . The restriction matters because . At , the surface degenerates to the exterior equatorial plane , ; at it degenerates to the corresponding half of the axis.
Finally, fixed specifies a vertical half-plane through the axis, with horizontal direction . The two values and together give a full plane. These surfaces form the mutually orthogonal families of the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates.

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