Conic Sections: Ellipses

Liam, Jordan, Stephen, Cole, Sam, and Ford

 What To Expect
-History

-Parts Of Conic

-Standard Form

-General Form

-Real World Application

History of Conic Sections
A conic section is any curve that is made by the intersection

of a plane and a right cone

These intersections will either create a circle, an ellipse, a

hyperbola, or a parabola

Were created to solve three greatest construction problems,

trisecting the angle, doubling the cube, and squaring the
circle.

Used to reflect sound and light

Any light or sound that hits one focal point is reflected to

the other focal point
Section of a Cone
You can get an ellipse when you slice
through a cone (but not too steep a cut, or
else you get a parabola or hyperbola).

In fact the ellipse is a conic section

(a section of a cone) with an eccentricity
between 0 and 1.
Parts of the Conic
An ellipse is akin to a circle,
except for the fact that one
axis, the major axis, is longer
than the other, the minor axis.
The ratio of distances is called
the eccentricity
The General
Form This is the general form for all
ellipses.
The Standard
Form By placing an ellipse on an x-y graph (with its
major axis on the x-axis and minor axis on the
y-axis), the equation of the curve is:

x2/a2 + y2/b2 = 1

A is the major axis while B is the minor axis. Then

X is the input while Y is the output.
Real-World
Applications

Solar Systems: The basic application of ellipses in the solar systems is the orbit of
our planets. You can use an elliptical conic to find the orbit of planets. The
Planetary Motion theory discovered by kepler is a very crucial real world example
of Ellipses.
Real-World
Applications

Whispering Galleries:

Whispering Galleries are rooms that have elliptical shape to them. The walls and ceilings are curved,

causing any sound to be amplified. The sound waves, created by anything in the room, travel and cling to

the walls. They are called Whispering-Gallery waves (Fitting name right?). The waves will continuously

bounce off the walls, until they run out of energy or find a way out. Now due to its elliptical shape, the

waves are amplified and focused on one point. While in a circular room you will hear a faint echo, in an

elliptical room you will hear it just as if they were right next to you.
Work Cited:

Ellipse. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017.

Stapel, Elizabeth. Conics: An Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017.

"Whispering Galleries." Acoustical Surfaces. N.p., 30 July 2014. Web. 15 May 2017.

"1972 Meeting with AAAS in Washington, D.C." Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America53.4
(1972): 6-29. Web.