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Re: construction of triangle of given perimeter, given point and angle
Posted:
Nov 11, 1997 3:05 PM
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On Tue, 11 Nov 1997, Eileen M. Klimick Schoaff wrote:
>
> A parabola, on the other hand, is determined by any 4 of its points.
> John Conway>
>
> Am I missing something here? Don't 3 points determine a parabola if the axis
> of symmetry is either vertical or horizontal?
Yes they do. But not if it isn't. You did miss something!
But if we consider any axes,
> then there are an infinite number of parabolas passing through three points.
Yes, this is true. But I spoke of 4 points, not 3.
> The generic equation is ax^2 + bxy +cy^2 + dx + ey + f = 0.
This is the general conic, which is usually an ellipse or hyperbola
rather than a hyperbola.
If Jon Roberts is
> considering parabolas of the form y = ax^2 + bx + c, then knowing 3 points
> gives you three equations with three unknowns which can easily be solved --
> unless there is no solution.
>
> In the April 1997 issue of the Mathematics Teacher, a colleague of mine, Dr.
> Ellie Johnson, wrote an article "A Look at Parabolas with a Graphing
> Calculator". In this article she using the calculator to generate many
> solutions to the generic equation. Of course this just shows that given three
> points and restricting yourself to a parabola of the form y = ax^2 + bx + c,
> you can derive the equation. That does not, of course, construct it.
>
> Does the fourth point determine whether the axis of symmetry is vertical,
> horizontal, or rotated?
Yes, roughly speaking.
In ax^2 + bxy +cy^2 + dx + ey + f = 0, it looks like
> you need more than 4 points to determine a, b, c, d, e, f.
You do indeed need 5 points to determine the general conic.
> Then again, I am only a math education person and do not have a PhD in math so
> I am probably far in the dark.
>
> Eileen Schoaff
> Buffalo State College
>
I think as a math educator you really SHOULD have known of the
existence of conics other than parabolae!
John Conway
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