The topic for investigation here is going to be parametric equations. We will start by looking at some basic parametric equations and move on to some advanced parametric equations.
![]() We can see here that the parametric equations above represent another way of writing down the equation of a circle. We notice that the coefficients of both the sint and the cost is 1. The radius of the circle is also 1. |
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![]() When we change the coefficients of the sint and the cost to 2, the radius of the circle becomes 2 also. |
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![]() When we vary the coefficients of sint and cost, the shape of the grap becomes an ellipse. Since the ellipse has x-intercepts of 2 and -2 when the coefficient of the cost is made 2, we suspect something... |
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![]() As we suspected, the y-intercepts of the ellipse become 2 and -2 when the coefficient of the sint is made to be 2. |
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Conclusion: The coefficients of the sin(t) and the cos(t) are the x- and the y-intercepts of the ellipse. Let us test our theory with one last example.
![]() As we suspected, when the coefficient of cost is 3, the x-intercepts of the ellipse is 3 and -3 and when the coefficient of the sint is 2, the y-intercept is 2 and -2. |
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