What Are Ellipses?
An ellipse is another shape, that like a circle, doesn’t have any sides or vertices. But while a circle is completely round, an ellipse is kind of “squeezed.” It looks like someone has stepped on a circle to flatten it.
Some ellipses are large, and some are small. Some ellipses are also flatter than others, as if they’ve been stepped on with more force.
Think About This
Can you think of anything that looks like an ellipse? Is there anything in your house that is shaped like one?
Now, we’ll talk a bit about what an ellipse looks like when you mirror it about different lines of symmetry.
We’ll begin with looking at what happens when you mirror an ellipse across a line of symmetry that is outside the ellipse. In the image below, you can see that the mirrored ellipse is the exact same as the original ellipse, and has the same distance from the line of symmetry as the original ellipse.
Think About This
Try to draw lines of symmetry on top of the ellipse. How many can you make?
As I’m sure you can see, you can only draw two different lines of symmetry on an ellipse! The first line of symmetry splits the ellipse lengthwise, and the second line of symmetry splits the ellipse widthwise. The point where the lines of symmetry intersect is the center of the ellipse.
Math Vault
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