So I have a feeling I am going to need to know what exactly this is and how to use it soon. Somehow I have escaped life this far without knowing it. Hell, only in the past year I have totally understood regular trig, even though I have to do soh-cah-toa every time.
I googled/wikipedia’ed it a little and found its like the unit circle but using a hyperbola, but that’s not a good enough answer. Clicking through links told me about centenary definition, which is pretty sweet too.
so instead of x^2+y^2=1 you use x^2-y^2=1 to get the Cartesian coordinates, but what is it used for?
Are you questioning its application to anything automotive? Or just math in general. Best I could find in just a quick google search was usage in hyperbolic geometry (non-euclidean), as well as in cones (plane intersections with cones), and gyrovector space.
You really are only going to run into it with higher level non-euclidean geometry and probably some higher level calc stuff. I’m guessing volume and cross sectional areas of cones from what I’m seeing. It’s been a few years for me but I don’t even think I saw this stuff in Calc III but then again I have forgotten a lot of my calc.