What type of ellipse do you have if the width is greater than the height?
See solution.
Practice makes perfect
We are told that the width of an ellipse is 50 units and that its height is 40 units. Since the width is greater than the height, our ellipse is a horizontal ellipse.
x^2/a^2+y^2/b^2=1, a> b>0
The distance between the vertices ( a,0) and (- a,0) equals the width, which is 50 units. With this in mind, and knowing that the center is at the origin, we can find the value of a.
We found that a is half the width. Similarly, the height is the distance between the co-vertices (0, b) and (0,- b). The value of b is half the height.
b=40/2 ⇔ b= 20
We can now write the desired equation.
x^2/25^2+y^2/20^2=1 ⇔ x^2/625+y^2/400=1
