RE: Vertical Tangents
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg25821] RE: [mg25787] Vertical Tangents
- From: "David Park" <djmp at earthlink.net>
- Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 01:41:13 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Tom,
Use the second form of ImplicitPlot.
Needs["Graphics`ImplicitPlot`"]
ImplicitPlot[{x^2 + x*y + y^2 == 7, y == 2*Sqrt[7/3],
x == 2 Sqrt[7/3]}, {x, -5, 5}, {y, -5, 5}];
David Park
djmp at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~djmp/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Moriarty [mailto:tjmor at erols.com]
To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
>
> This group was very helpful on my last question and I hope you will be
> willing to once again come to the aid of a teacher trying to illustrate
> to calculus students tangents to implicit plots. By the way, I
> purchased Mathematica on my own, it is not available to me at school -
> so I plot at home and Xerox handouts for the kids. I have been able to
> show them various implicit plots and tangents to them - for example
> ImplicitPlot[{x^2 + x*y + y^2==7, y == 2*Sqrt[7/3]},{x,-5,5}] which
> clearly shows the ellipse and one of the horizontal tangents (as asked
> for in the textbook problem). But the problem also asked for the
> vertical tangents, one of which would be x == 2*Sqrt[7/3], but I get the
> message that this equation does not have a single variable other than
> x. Is there any way to plot a vertical line?
>
> Let me tell you Mathematica certainly has helped my students (and me)
> visualize these implicit plots, without which they are just a matter of
> faith.
>
> Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Tom Moriarty
>