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A family of conic sections of varying eccentricity share a focus point and directrix line, including an ellipse (red, e = 1/2), a parabola (green, e = 1), and a hyperbola (blue, e = 2). The conic of eccentricity 0 in this figure is an infinitesimal circle centered at the focus, and the conic of eccentricity ∞ is an infinitesimally separated ...
It is shown above that this distance equals the focal length of the parabola, which is the distance from the vertex to the focus. The focus and the point F are therefore equally distant from the vertex, along the same line, which implies that they are the same point. Therefore, the point F, defined above, is the focus of the parabola.
A conic is defined as the locus of points for each of which the distance to the focus divided by the distance to the directrix is a fixed positive constant, called the eccentricity e. If 0 < e < 1 the conic is an ellipse, if e = 1 the conic is a parabola, and if e > 1 the conic is a hyperbola.
A parabola may also be defined in terms of its focus and latus rectum line (parallel to the directrix and passing through the focus): it is the locus of points whose distance to the focus plus or minus the distance to the line is equal to 2a; plus if the point is between the directrix and the latus rectum, minus otherwise.
where (h, k) is the center of the ellipse in Cartesian coordinates, in which an arbitrary point is given by (x, y).The semi-major axis is the mean value of the maximum and minimum distances and of the ellipse from a focus — that is, of the distances from a focus to the endpoints of the major axis
A pencil of confocal ellipses and hyperbolas is specified by choice of linear eccentricity c (the x-coordinate of one focus) and can be parametrized by the semi-major axis a (the x-coordinate of the intersection of a specific conic in the pencil and the x-axis). When 0 < a < c the conic is a hyperbola; when c < a the conic is an ellipse.
Parabola: the set of points equidistant from a fixed point (the focus) and a line (the directrix). Hyperbola: the set of points for each of which the absolute value of the difference between the distances to two given foci is a constant. Ellipse: the set of points for each of which the sum of the distances to two given foci is a constant
In either the coordinate or vector formulations, one may verify that the given point lies on the given plane by plugging the point into the equation of the plane. To see that it is the closest point to the origin on the plane, observe that p {\displaystyle \mathbf {p} } is a scalar multiple of the vector v {\displaystyle \mathbf {v} } defining ...