TABLE OF CONTENT

➢ INTRODUCTION TO CONIC SECTION.

➢ HISTROY OF CONIC SECTIONS.
➢ MEANING OF CONIC SECTIONS.
➢ WHAT IS A RIGHT CIRCULAR CONE?
➢ TERMS USED IN CONIC SECTIONS.
➢ SECTIONS OF CONE.
➢ DEGENERATE CONICS.
➢ ECCENTRICITY.
➢ LATUS RECTUM.
➢ CONIC PARAMETERS.
➢ WHAT IS CARTESIAN COORDINATES?
➢ STANDARD FORM OF EQUTION IN CARTESIAN
COORDINATES.
➢ CLASSIFYING A CONIC SECTION FROM ITS EQUTION.
➢ CONCLUSION
Introduction to conic section.

A conic is the intersection of a plane and a right circular

cone. The four basic types of conics are parabolas,
ellipses, circles, and hyperbolas. We've already discussed
parabolas and circles in previous sections, but here we'll
define them a new way. Study the figures below to see
how a conic is geometrically defined.
History of Conic Sections

The first definition of conic section was given by Menaechmus

but his work didn’t work. The Apollonius of perga had written about the conic
sections and the other hidden discoveries of conics in his book “The conic” in 200
B.C. Archimedes and Apollonius had studied the conics for their own beauty but
 now it is very important tool in space and research work.

Meaning of Conic Sections

Conic Section is a
curve formed by the intersection of a plane with the two napped right
circular cone. Because of this intersection, different types of curves are formed
due to different angles. Or you can say that if we slice the 3d cone in pieces it
could be cut in different shapes and these shapes form some curves these are
called Conic Sections, sections here means the slice of cone.

What is a right circular cone?

There are two lines intersect each other at a fixed point and angle. One
line rotates around it so that the angle remains the same and the surface
obtained then is called the RightCircularCone.

Terms used in Conic Sections

To understand the conic sections first we need to understand some terms which are used in it:
• Center - The point at the center of a circle, an ellipse or a hyperbola.
There is no center in parabola.
• Vertex - The right circular cone consists of two cones joint at a fixed
point is called Vertex (represented as V in the above picture).
• Generator – The line which rotates around is called Generator as
shown by orange line in the picture.
• Axis - A line which is fixed and perpendicular to the base and passes
through the vertex is called Axis.
• Directrix- The perimeter of the base is called the Directrix.
• Nappe - The lateral surface or the round surface of the cone is called
the Nappe. The nappe above the vertex is called the upper nappe and
the nappe below the vertex is called the Lower Nappe.

•
Vertex Angle – The angle between the axis and the generator is called
the Vertex Angle.
• Focus - It is a point from which the distance is measured to form conic.
• Major Axis- It is a line segment which is perpendicular to the directrix of
any conic section.
• Minor Axis - It is a line segment which is perpendicular to the directrix
and bisecting the major axis of the conic section.
• Plane - The conic sections are the curves obtained when the plane
intersects with the cone as shown in the above picture
 Sections of a Cone
The conic sections are the curve obtained when the plane intersects with
the cone .It is the angle of intersection which defines the type of conic
sections. There are four types of conic sections.

• Ellipse- When the plane intersects with the double circular cone in such
a way that the angle between the axis and the plane is greater than the
vertex angle then it made an ellipse.
• Circle - When the plane is perpendicular at the axis, the ellipse
becomes the circle. Or you can say that circle is the special type of
ellipse.
• Parabola- When the angle between the vertical axis and the plane is
equal to the vertex angle, we get an open curve called parabola at the
intersecting surface of the cone.
• Hyperbola - In all the above conic sections we are getting one curve in
only one nappe of the double cone, but when the angle between the
plane and the vertical axis is less than the vertical angle, the plane
intersects both the nappes of the cone which form two disjoint open
curves are called Hyperbola.

Degenerate Conics

If a plane intersects the double right circular cone at the vertex then the
ellipse become point, parabola becomes line and hyperbola becomes two
intersectinglines.

Eccentricity
Eccentricity is the factor related to conic sections which shows how circular the
conic sections. More the eccentricity less circular the shape is and more the
eccentricity less circular the shape is. The eccentricity of the line is ∞. The two
conic sections will be of same shape if they have same eccentricity. A conic section
is defined as the locus of all points whose distances to a point (the focus) and a line
(the directrix) are in a constant ratio. This ratio is called Eccentricity. It is denoted
by “e”.
Eccentricity of circle is 0.
Eccentricity of ellipse is 0 < e <1.
Eccentricity of parabola e = 1.
Eccentricity of hyperbola e > 1.

Latus Rectum
It is the line parallel to directrix and passes through focus.
• In a parabola latus rectum is four times the focal length.

• In a circle, it is the diameter

2
• In an ellipse, is 2b /a (where a and b are one half of the major and
minordiameter).

Conic Parameters
Some factors of conic sections are:
• The line joining the foci of the ellipse or hyperbola is the principal axis and the
center is the midpoint of the line segment.
• The distance between the center and any of the focus is the linear eccentricity. It
is denoted by “c”.
• The latus rectum is the line segment parallel to directrix and passes through any
of the focus. It is denoted by “2l”.
• The half length of the latus rectum is called Semi Latus Rectum and it is denoted
by “l”.
• The distance between the focus and the directrix is the focal parameter. It is
denoted by “p”.
• The value of the semi major axis is a.
• The value of the semi minor axis is b.

What is Cartesian coordinates?

To draw any graph we must know the points on a graph to show where we are on
that map, these points are called the Cartesian coordinates.
 The horizontal line is generally represented with “x” and the
vertical line is represented with “y” and where x and y intersects is the “0” point i.e.
we measure everything from there.
We represent the coordinates as (x, y). As shown in the picture on the right (0, 0) is
the point where x and y intersects.
In the point (2, 3), x is 2 so we will start from 0 and move horizontally towards the
point 2 and y is 3 so we will move vertically toward 3, then we will mark a point
where these points intersects.
Likewise if there is any negative coordinate the we will move toward left if x is
negative and downwards if y is negative.

Standard form of equations in Cartesian

coordinates
The above conic parameters are used to create the standard form of conic sections.
The general Cartesian form of equation covering all the conic sections is-
Ax2 + Bxy + Cy2 + Dx + Ey + F = 0
Where all the coefficients are the real numbers.
But all the conic sections have some standard equations-
Circle
The standard form of a circle is:
(x - h)2 + (y - k)2 = r2
where (h, k) is the centre of the circle and r is the radius of the circle.
Its general form is
x2 + y2- hx – ky – (h + k) = 0
Ellipse
The standard form of an ellipse is:

where (h, k) is the centre of the ellipse, a is the horizontal stretch factor and b is the
vertical stretch factor.
Parabola
x = a(y - k)2 + h (east to west), where a is the horizontal stretch factor or
y = a(x - h)2 + k (north to south), where a is the vertical stretch factor.
Where, (h, k) is the vertex
Hyperbola
where a is the horizontal stretch factor and b is the vertical stretch factor .

Classifying a conic from its equation

For the general second degree equation, that is,
Ax2 + Bxy + Cy2 + Dx + Ey + F = 0
The expression B2 - 4AC is the discriminant which is used to determine the type of
conic section represented by equation.

Discriminant Type of conic

B2 - 4AC < 0,B = 0 and A = C Circle

B2 - 4AC < 0,either B ≠ 0 or A ≠ C Ellipse

B2 - 4AC = 0 Parabola

B2 - 4AC > 0 Hyperbola

Example
Classify the following equations according to their type of conics.
A) 4x2 + 4y2 -16x + 4y - 60 = 0
B) x2 - 4x + 16y + 17 = 0
C) x2 + 2y2 + 4x + 2y – 27 = 0

Solution:
A) Here A = 4, B = 0, C = 4
Determinant will be B2 - 4AC
= 02- 4(4) (4) = -64
This shows that B2 - 4AC < 0, B = 0 and A = C, so this is a circle.
In other way we can say that both variables are squared, and both squared terms
are multiplied by the same number, so this is a circle.

B) Here A =1,B = 0, C = 0
Determinant will be B2- 4AC
= 02-4(1) (0) = 0
This shows that B2 - 4AC = 0, so this is a parabola or you can say that if Only one
of the variables is squared, this is called a Parabola.

C) Here A =1, B = 0, C = 2
Determinant will be B2 - 4AC
= 02 - 4(1) (2) = -8
This shows that B2 - 4AC < 0, and A ≠ C so this is an ellipse or in other way we
can say that Both variables are squared with the same sign, but they aren't
multiplied by the same number, so this is an ellipse.
Conclusion:
significance as that would take ridiculous amount of time.
Practically, I learned that not only do conic deal with certain
object, but the whole world itself as in astronomy. Before being
assigned this project ,I was not very familiar with my surrounding nor
never really understood how conic let alone any type of math could be
used in the real world/everyday life. When I was assigned this project, I
was not to sure what to expect nor did I know what example there
were to choose from because I thought I would be very limited with my
choices . Ofcouse, I was wrong. Researching online, I found multiple
examples I could use but limited myself from using them as I could not
point out every coinc and its