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Hi, I'm Kendall Roberg at the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, and today we are going to learn about conic sections.
In this pool, we have cownose rays and southern sting rays, and over here, we have a parabola.
Now, a parabola has this U-shape.
Running right down the middle of the parabola is the axis of symmetry.
At the very bottom here is the vertex.
Inside, this little point is called the focus.
Finally, this line running perpendicular to the axis of symmetry is called the directrix.
This is a loggerhead sea turtle, and this is a circle.
Now, you may be familiar with a circle; they have a few parts.
Right here is called the center of the circle.
This line connecting the center to the edge of the circle is called the radius.
If you found the distance from these two points, it would be the radius.
You may be familiar with a machine like this.
I insert the penny and turn the wheel.
Out pops a strange little shape.
This is called an ellipse.
An ellipse has a few parts.
It has a squashed circle appearance, and it has a major axis, the longer of the two axes, and a minor axis.
This is the center of the ellipse.
These points right here are called the vertices.
They lie on the major axis.
These points right here are the covertices; they lie on the minor axis.
Finally, these little stars represent the foci, or if we call them individually, this is a focus, and this is a focus.
Together, they're foci.
This is an African Penguin, and he's just as interested in hyperbolas as I am.
Here, we have a hyperbola, and right here...this is called the transverse axis.
It cuts the two U-shapes in half.
These are called the foci, or individually the focus.
This is the center, and finally, these are the vertices.
Now, when you're looking at parts, they're very similar to two parabolas that reflect.