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Conic Sections
This section is
pretty in-depth. You will learn many things relatively
quickly, so be ready. It is all about analytic geometry
and conic sections. What are conic sections you ask? If you
take a double cone (one cone standing on the tip of another cone)
and cut them, you will get a conic section. There are 4
"true" conic sections; they are a circle, parabola (U shaped figure), hyperbola
(two U shaped figures going in opposite directions) and an ellipse
(oval). There are also 3 degenerate conic sections; they
are a single point, a line, and a pair of lines. This chapter
also includes Coordinate Proofs. This is where you prove
theorems from geometry by using coordinate proofs. This is not extremely
difficult if you remember the theorems from geometry such as distance
formula, midpoint theorem, how to prove that two lines are parallel,
how to prove that two lines are perpendicular, etc. Finally,
you will learn how to solve systems of second-degree equations.
There are three methods: algebraically, graphically, or a combination
of the two.
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