Skip designs tracks for amusement park rides. For a new design, the track will be elliptical. If the ellipse is placed on a large coordinate grid with its center at (0, 0), the equation 9 x 2 + 25 y 2 =225 models the path of the track. The units are given in yards. How long is the major axis of the track? Explain how you found the distance.
9 x^ 2 + 25 y^ 2 =225 divide both sides by 225 to put the equation of the ellipse in standard form
x^2/ a^2 + y^2/ b^2 = 1
x^2 / 25 + y^2 / 9 = 1
The major axis lies along the x axis and is 2a units in length and "a" can be found as follows......√a^2 = √25 → a = 5
So....2a = 2 (5) = 10 units = 10 yards = 30 feet = the length of the major axis