Гиперболоид инженера Гарина

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin is a science fiction novel by A. N. Tolstoy, completed by 1927.

A. N. Tolstoy described the origin of the idea of ​​a hyperboloid in the following way:
When he wrote “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin” (an old acquaintance, Olenin, told me the real story of the construction of such a double hyperboloid; the engineer who made this discovery died in 1918 in Siberia), — I had to get acquainted with the latest theories of molecular physics. Academician P.P. Lazarev helped me a lot. For many years I have kept notebooks, but I write little, mainly facts.

There is an opinion that a more correct name for Garin's device should have been a paraboloid, Tolstoy agreed with this and said that he knew about it, but chose the word "hyperboloid" because of the more impressive sound. However, in Garin's device, according to his description, two hyperbolic mirrors were used - the main concave and the small convex. This is similar to the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope system that was proposed in 1924: it includes two hyperbolic mirrors and is now used in most large telescopes and in high-power laser cavities.