How do you determine circle, parabola, ellipse, or hyperbola from equation 4x29y216x+18y11=0?

1 Answer
Nov 12, 2015

EVERY conic section can be written with the general equation :

Ax2+By2+Cx+Dy+E=0

Explanation:

Here is how you distinguish the various conic sections from the coefficients in the general equation:

circle : A=B

ellipse : AB but A and B both have the SAME sign (+ or -)

hyperbola : AB but A and B both have DIFFERENT signs

parabola : either A or B equals 0 (only one squared term in the equation)

So, in the problem stated above, since AB (49), but A and B have different signs (4 and -9), it is a hypebola !

hope that helped