Plate IX
The Cone of Light
The form is not the essence.
"the form is not the essence, the symbol is not the source, and the map is not the territory."
A double cone of stone-light beside its own engraved graph-paper page, cut at once by a single tiltable plane
Two small gold orbs control the cutting plane. Drag the orb riding the plane's rim to tilt it: the section sweeps from a circle, through an ellipse, through a parabola, into a hyperbola. Drag the orb at the plane's center to slide it up or down the cone's shared axis, through the golden sun at its center, onto either cone. With the figure focused, press the Left or Right arrow key to tilt in fixed steps, or the Up or Down arrow key to move the height handle in fixed steps. Drag anywhere else in the frame to turn the double cone itself and see it from another side; double-click to return it to its resting view. Release both handles and hold still for ten seconds; the current section sharpens in both the stone and the page, and its geometric name fades into legibility beneath the figure. Any further movement fades both back out instantly.
Fig. IX — the plane cuts the cone's ruled surface in a curve named circle — one among the solid's many possible , never the whole of it.
We see that the conic sections, the 2-dimensional projections on the right symbolise the multiplicity of Reality through space and time. Seen from beyond, however, we recognise that these are simply incomplete projections of a deeper, fuller Reality.