Tangent of an Ellipse

75 Views Asked by At

For the curve described by this expression answer the following questions:

$$x^2 + xy + y^2 = 7$$

Find the equation(s) of all lines tangent to the curve at $x = -1$.

Give line in slope-intercept form. If there is more than one line, please indicate to which point the line corresponds.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

HINT

To begin with, start by determining the points of the ellipse which have $x = -1$ as its abscissa: \begin{align*} (-1)^{2} + (-1)y + y^{2} = 7 \Longrightarrow y^{2} - y - 6 = 0 \Longleftrightarrow (y = -2)\vee(y = 3) \end{align*}

Then you can make use of implicit differentiation to obtain the relation among $x,y$ and $y'$: \begin{align*} x^{2} + xy + y^{2} = 7 \Longrightarrow 2x + y + xy' + 2yy' = 0 \end{align*}

Now plugin the pairs of values $(-1,-2)$ and $(-1,3)$ with the purpose of finding the corresponding slopes.

Can you take it from here?