Alternative Constructions of Familiar Curves

Cody King
Santa Clara University, 2014
Most people are familiar with drawing an ellipse on a graph and making it
as an egg shaped figure, but there is another method for constructing ellipses
that will probably seem far-fetched or a little odd. First, if X is a point on
a circle, and A and B are points inside, then we can make the line AX and
segment BX. The locus of points created by the intersection of AX and
the perpendicular bisector of BX creates a well-known curve when A and B
are positioned in certain spots. There are other cases when different curves
are created including a curve that looks a like a limacon and one that looks
like a pretzel or blimp. It is really remarkable that these familiar curves can
come out of this construction and especially when looking at the complicated
equations that are yielded initially. In this paper I will present some results,
as well as touch on a few general topics about conics.

Creating an Ellipse

To start, I will construct an ellipse given the scenario I described above.

Before the construction, I will show how to set up the coordinates and axes
to make the situation a little easier to visualize.

Setting up the Coordinates

The circle C will have a radius equal to one and will be centered at the origin
in a coordinate plane. I will then use polar coordinates for A and B in the
form of (r, ). The r will represent the distance from the origin to the specific
point. If the origin is O and the specific point is P , then is the angle going
counter-clockwise from the x-axis and the segment OP . The point X will
have the point (cos(), sin()).
1

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The Construction
For this case I will keep A and B on the x-axis, so = 0. The only condition
needed to make an ellipse is for A to be at the origin, but I will keep B on the
x-axis to allow for simpler equations. The path of X has circular symmetry
and without loss of generality, we can rotate the plane to put B on the x-axis
no matter where B is. Here, the point B will be at ( 54 , 0) and the center of
the ellipse is going to be the midpoint between the two foci, so therefore it is
2
. I used basic techniques to find the equations of AX and the perpendicular
5
bisector of BX, and then solved for the point of intersection. Initially, I had
the following equations where A = (b, ) and B = (r, ):


r cos()
r + cos()
sin()
=
x
,
y
2
sin()
2
y b sin() =

sin() b sin()
(x b cos())
cos() b cos()

It much nicer to express this using parametric equations and after using
Maple to solve and simplify, the equation and graph are:
x=

cos()
9
sin()
9

,y =
, 0 2
10 5 + 4 cos()
10 5 + 4 cos()

Figure 1: Ellipse with foci A = (0, 0) and B = ( 54 , 0)

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I will show that the curve and corresponding parametric equation above
satisfy the definition of an ellipse. Given a point P on this ellipse, if the sum
of the distances from each focus to P is constant, then the curve is an ellipse.
We have the foci and equation for the ellipse, so we can use the distance
formula to get the following sum that shows the distance is always equal to
one, and therefore, the curve is an ellipse:
s
2 
2
9
cos()
9
sin()

+
+
10 5 + 4 cos()
10 5 + 4 cos()
s

4
9
cos()
+

5 10 5 + 4 cos()

2

sin()
9
+
10 5 + 4 cos()

2
=1

A Special Case of the Ellipse

I am going to present a very simple case of this problem where the locus
makes a circle, a special type of ellipse in which the distance from the center
to any point on the circle is constant. For this construction, the circle is
formed with A = B = (0, 0) and it centered at the origin with a radius
equal to 12 (only when A = B = (0, 0) are they the center of the circle). For
this case, parametric equations are not necessary because the locus is the
set of midpoints of OX, the segment from the origin to X. This satisfies
the condition for a circle and the given circle is represented by the following
equation and graph:
x2 + y 2 = 0.25

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Figure 2: Circle centered at origin with radius

1
2

and with A = B = (0, 0)

Mystery Curves

Lastly, I will talk about two curves that are not ellipses. These curves are
formed when the angles for the coordinates of A and B are different and for
various other circumstances. The first curve below looks like a limacon and
this is formed by putting A on the opposite side of the y-axis from B. In
this case, I have A = ( 25 , ) and B = ( 15 , 0); The curve is below:

Figure 3: Possibly a limacon. A = ( 25 , ) and B = ( 15 , 0)

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The next curve is comparable to a pretzel or a blimp. This curve can be

formed by having A and B on opposite sides of the y-axis just as the curve
before did, but farther apart. Leaving B fixed, the curve gets very large
as A moves farther from B along the x-axis toward the edge of the circle,
but it is not too big in this particular example where I have A = ( 52 , ) and
B = ( 45 , 0). The curve is below:

Figure 4: Curve that looks like a pretzel or blimp. A = ( 25 , ) and B = ( 54 , 0)

Conclusion
During this time of deep thought and investigation, I was able to construct
ellipses and other curves in a very different way from what I have been used
to doing in the past. In the beginning, I got equations for the locus that
were very nasty, but Maple was a very useful tool that I was able to use for
simplifying equations and for plotting points in different scenarios. Once I
got a simpler equation for the ellipse, which required placing A and B in
certain spots and using Maple, I was able to analyze it and use knowledge
about conics to prove it was an ellipse.

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Additional Projects
There is definitely a lot more investigating and analysis that can be done with
this topic. I could further examine the two non-elliptic curves I included at
the end and try to figure out what they actually are. My initial thinking is
that the first curve is a limacon, but I could find parametric equations for the
curve to verify if I had more time to examine, and the same could be done
with the last curve I included. Another small project can be done with the
winding number that involves some calculus for which Maple can be used.
I am not exactly sure what the winding number is, but my guess would be
that it would involve the amount of times the curve loops around. This is
a very intriguing topic that has many different projects to explore; I really
enjoyed working with this and learned quite a lot.