Introduction to The Ellipse

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Write equations of ellipses in standard form.
Graph ellipses centered at the origin.
Graph ellipses not centered at the origin.
Solve applied problems involving ellipses.

Figure 1. The National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. (credit: Greg Palmer, Flickr)

Can you imagine standing at one end of a large room and still being able to hear a whisper from a person standing at the other end? The National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. is such a room.[footnote]Architect of the Capitol. http://www.aoc.gov. Accessed April 15, 2014.[/footnote] It is an oval-shaped room called a whispering chamber because the shape makes it possible for sound to travel along the walls. In this section, we will investigate the shape of this room and its real-world applications, including how far apart two people in Statuary Hall can stand and still hear each other whisper.

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College Algebra. Provided by: OpenStax Authored by: Abramson, Jay et al.. License: CC BY: Attribution. License terms: Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected].

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Precalculus. Provided by: OpenStax Authored by: OpenStax College. Located at: https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:1/Preface. License: CC BY: Attribution.

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