Conic Sections - High School Math

First, we need to make sure the conic section equation is in a form we recognize. Luckily, this equation is already in standard form:

The first step is to determine the type of conic section this equation represents. Because there are two squared variables ( and ), this equation cannot be a parabola. Because the coefficients in front of the squared variables are different signs (i.e. one is negative and the other is positive), this equation must be a hyperbola, not an ellipse.

In a hyperbola, the squared term with a positive coefficient represents the direction in which the hyperbola opens. In other words, if the term is positive, the hyperbola opens horizontally. If the term is positive, the hyperbola opens vertically. Therefore, this is a horizontal hyperbola.

The center is always found at , which in this case is .

That leaves only the asymptotes. For a hyperbola, the slopes of the asymptotes can be found by dividing by (remember to always put the vertical value, , above the horizontal value, ). Remember that these slopes always come in pairs, with one being positive and the other being negative.

In this case, is 3 and is 2, so we get slopes of and .

Since this is an upwards-opening parabola, its minimum value will occur at the vertex. The -coordinate for the vertex of any parabola of the form

is at

So here,

We plug this value back into the equation of the parabola, to find the value of the function at this .

Thus the minimal value of the expression is .

A circle is defined by an equation in the format .

The center is indicated by the point and the radius .

In the equation , the center is and the radius is .

The simplest way to know what kind of conic section an equation represents is by checking the coefficients in front of each variable. The equation must be in general form while you do this check. Luckily, this equation is already in general form, so it's easy to see. The general equation for a conic section is the following:

Assuming the term is 0 (which it usually is):

• If A equals C, the equation is a circle.
• If A and C have the same sign (but are not equal to each other), the equation is an ellipse.
• If either A or C equals 0, the equation is a parabola.
• If A and C are different signs (i.e. one is negative and one is positive), the equation is a hyperbola.

For any parabola of the form , the -coordinate of its vertex is

So here, we have

=

We plug this back into the original equation to find :

=