Ice-cream Posted October 9, 2004 Share Posted October 9, 2004 this is a Q i'm having trouble with...can some1 help me out? PT is the tangent at P, a variable point on the parabola xsquared = -16y. If T lies on the directrix, find the locus of the midpoint PT. what i've already gathered is that the directrix must be y=4. I'm not sure if P's coordinate is (-4tsquared, 8t) because the parabola isn't in the form ysquared = 4ax but for the coordinate of T, all i know is that its y value must be 4. Can any1 tell me wat im missing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crash Posted October 10, 2004 Share Posted October 10, 2004 Y= at^2 or Y= 2at are others you could try, see if they work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dapthar Posted October 10, 2004 Share Posted October 10, 2004 PT is the tangent at P' date=' a variable point on the parabola xsquared = -16y. If T lies on the directrix, find the locus of the midpoint PT.what i've already gathered is that the directrix must be y=4. I'm not sure if P's coordinate is (-4tsquared, 8t) because the parabola isn't in the form ysquared = 4ax but for the coordinate of T, all i know is that its y value must be 4. Can any1 tell me wat im missing?[/quote']You're a bit off there. [math]x^2=-16y[/math] [math]\iff \frac{-x^2}{16}=y[/math] Setting [math]x=t[/math], we get the following: [math](t, \frac{-t^2}{16})[/math] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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