Locus of
By Sarah Shales (t382) on June 8,
1998 :
Please could you help me with explaining what the locus of
looks like?
I know it is an arc of a circle, but which arc ?
Help
By Stuart White (saw30) on June 10,
1998 :
Dear Sarah,
As
the equation becomes:
The rest of the answer gets somewhat geometrical, so look at the diagram.
Draw a triangle
, with
at the origin and
at
. Let
represent
. Draw lines
,
parallel to the
-axis as shown.
Then
(where
represents the angle between
and
) and
. Therefore the equations can be
written
As
we can write
By angles on a straight line (
) this becomes:
and by angles in a triangle:
(Note I have been careful to ensure all angles are described in an
anticlockwise sense)
So the angle
is constant, and as all angles subtended by the same arc
of a circle are equal
lies on an arc of a circle connecting
to
,
such that the size of the angle
is
. There are two such
arcs, one below
and
and one above.
One arc will correspond to the
and the other
, so how do we
find out which is which? Well here's a rather crude way:
For
to be above
clearly
(measured as arguments
i.e. in an anticlockwise sense). Therefore
so does not equal
.
So
must lie below
. So we have determined which arc the locus of
lies on.
I hope this helps - please get back to me if it makes no sense.
Yours,
Stuart
