Conic Sections

Conic Section: a section (or slice) through a cone.

Did you know that by taking different slices through a cone you can create a circle, an ellipse, a parabola or a hyperbola?

Cones	Circle	Ellipse	Parabola	Hyperbola

	straight through	slight angle	parallel to edge of cone	steep angle

So all those curves are related!

Focus!

The curves can also be defined using a straight line and a point (called the directrix and focus).

If you measure the distance:

from the focus to a point on the curve, and
perpendicularly from the directrix to that point

the two distances will always be the same ratio.

For an ellipse, the ratio is less than 1
For a parabola, the ratio is 1, so the two distances are equal.
For a hyperbola, the ratio is greater than 1

Eccentricity

That ratio above is called the "eccentricity", so we can say that any conic section is:

"all points whose distance to the focus is equal
to the eccentricity times the distance to the directrix"

For 0 < eccentricity < 1 we get an ellipse,
for eccentricity = 1 a parabola, and
for eccentricity > 1 a hyperbola.

A circle has an eccentricity of zero, so the eccentricity shows you how "un-circular" the curve is. The bigger the eccentricity, the less curved it is.

Latus Rectum

The latus rectum (no, it is not a rude word!) runs parallel to the directrix and passes through the focus. Its length:

In a parabola, is four times the focal length
In a circle, is the diameter
In an ellipse, is 2b²/a (where a and b are one half of the major and minor diameter).

ellipse directrix, focus and latus rectum

Here you can see the major axis and minor axis of an ellipse.

There is not just one focus and directrix, but a pair of them (one each side).

General Equation

In fact, we can make an equation that covers all these curves.

Because they are plane curves (even though cut out of the solid) we only have to deal with Cartesian ("x" and "y") Coordinates.

But these are not straight lines, so just "x" and "y" will not do ... we need to go to the next level, and have:

x² and y²,
and also x (without y), y (without x),
x and y together (xy)
and a constant term.

There, that should do it!

And each one needs a factor (A,B,C etc) ...

So the general equation that covers all conic sections is:

And from that equation we can create equations for the circle, ellipse, parabola and hyperbola ... but that is beyond the scope of this page.