Question

help @Luigi0210 @rmrjr22

Answer 1

Major axis: The longest diameter of an ellipse.
Minor axis: The shortest diameter of an ellipse.

Answer 2

Yup.

Answer 3

formula for the ellipse has the major and minor axes' lengths encoded as the square root of the denominators...the major one is the square root of the bigger number

Answer 4

So what's the longest diameter in this one?

Answer 5

14 ?

Answer 6

not too sure on that one

Answer 7

If I'm not mistaken the major axis is a+b

Answer 8

that's right. I should clarify my statement: it's the semimajor and semiminor axes that are the square roots of the denominators

Answer 9

@whpalmer4 @rmrjr22 what do you think?

Answer 10

look at the denominator of both parts

Answer 11

x/a +y/b = 1 simple form

Answer 12

guys, look at the picture

Answer 13

if a> b then its horrizontal... if a<b then its vertical

Answer 14

(for major axis)

Answer 15

evaluate at x = 4:
\[(y+8)^2/7^2 = 1\]\[(y+8) =\pm 7\]\[y = -1, y = -15\]
so the thing is 14 units long from top to bottom

Answer 16

for the minor axis, evaluate at y = -8:
\[(x-4)^2/6^2=1\]\[x-4=\pm 6\]\[x=-2,x=10\]so 12 units long right to left

Answer 17

just be glad it isn't one of those damn ellipses that's tilted at an angle :-)

Answer 18

so i was right?

Answer 19

Hm.. Kinda lost.

Answer 20

you were right!

Answer 21

yup u were

Answer 22

talk to me @Luigi0210 what's got you confused?

Answer 23

Hm, well the method you used.. the book just says take a and multiply it by 2.

Answer 24

Which gave the same answer

Answer 25

of course. I'm just computing the points on the ellipse where all of the string is used either along the x axis or the y axis, essentially...

Answer 26

Well alright.

Answer 27

I think of ellipses as special cases of circles, rather than the more usual circles are special cases of ellipses :-)