This oval, with only one axis of symmetry, resembles a chicken egg.

An oval with two axes of symmetry.

In geometry, an oval or ovoid (from Latin ovum, 'egg') is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse. In Mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object An egg is a round or oval body laid by the female of many animals consisting of an Ovum surrounded by layers of Membranes and an outer casing which acts to nourish In Mathematics, an ellipse (from the Greek ἔλλειψις literally absence) is a Conic section, the locus of points in a Unlike other curves, the term 'oval' is not well-defined and many distinct curves are commonly called ovals. These curves have in common that:

• they are differentiable (smooth-looking), simple (not self-intersecting), convex, closed, plane curves;
• their shape does not depart much from that of an ellipse, and
• there is at least one axis of symmetry. 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 Euclidean space, an object is convex if for every pair of points within the object every point on the Straight line segment that joins them is also within the In Mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object In mathematics a plane curve is a Curve in a Euclidian plane (cf The shape ( OE sceap Eng created thing) of an object located in some space refers to the part of space occupied by the object as determined In Mathematics, an ellipse (from the Greek ἔλλειψις literally absence) is a Conic section, the locus of points in a Reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, mirror-image symmetry, or bilateral symmetry is Symmetry with respect

The word ovoidal refers to the characteristic of being an ovoid.

Other examples of ovals described elsewhere include:

• Cassini ovals
• elliptic curves
• superellipse

Egg shape

The shape of an egg is approximately that of half each a prolate (long) and roughly spherical (potentially even minorly oblate/short) ellipsoid joined at the equator, sharing a principal axis of rotational symmetry, as illustrated above. In Mathematics, a Cassini oval (named after mathematician-astronomer G In Mathematics, an elliptic curve is a smooth, projective Algebraic curve of genus one on which there is a specified point O The superellipse (or Lamé curve) is the geometric figure defined in the Cartesian coordinate system as the set of all points ( x, y) with An egg is a round or oval body laid by the female of many animals consisting of an Ovum surrounded by layers of Membranes and an outer casing which acts to nourish A prolate spheroid is a Spheroid in which the polar Diameter is longer than the Equatorial diameter An oblate Spheroid is a rotationally symmetric Ellipsoid having a polar axis shorter than the diameter of the equatorial circle whose plane An ellipsoid is a type of quadric surface that is a higher dimensional analogue of an Ellipse. Generally speaking an object with rotational symmetry is an object that looks the same after a certain amount of Rotation. Although the term egg-shaped usually implies a lack of reflection symmetry across the equatorial plane, it may also refer to true prolate ellipsoids. Reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, mirror-image symmetry, or bilateral symmetry is Symmetry with respect It can also be used to describe the 2-dimensional figure that, revolved around its major axis, produces the 3-dimensional surface. In Geometry, the semi-major axis (also semimajor axis) is used to describe the dimensions of ellipses and hyperbolae

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 Real projective plane and Complex projective plane, for the cases met as manifolds of respective dimension 2 and 4 In Mathematics In Abstract algebra, a finite field or Galois field (so named in honor of Évariste Galois) is a field that contains only finitely many elements See oval (projective plane). In PG(2q, with q a Prime power, an oval is a set of q+1 points no three of which are collinear

See also

• Squoval