Bicol University
College of Education
Daraga Albay
Pre calculus and Analytic Geometry
Hyperbola with Center ( h,k )
Submitted by:
June L. Bodegon
BSED 2-Q [PHYSICS]
1st Semester, SY; 2015-2016
Submitted to:
Dr. Epifania B. Nunez
Professor
Hyperbola with center at (h,k)
The hyperbola is centered on a point (h,
k), which is the "center" of the hyperbola. The point on each
branch closest to the center is that branch's "vertex". The vertices are some fixed distance a from the
center. The line going from one vertex, through the center, and ending at the other vertex is called the
"transverse" axis. The "foci" of an hyperbola are "inside" each branch, and each focus is located some
fixed distance c from the center. (This means that a < c for hyperbolas.) The values of
from one hyperbola to another, but they will be fixed values for any given hyperbola.
a and c will vary
en the transverse axis is
horizontal (in other words,
when the center, foci, and
vertices line up side by
side, parallel to the x-axis),
then the a2 goes with the
x part of the hyperbola's
equation, and the y part is
subtracted.
When the transverse axis is
vertical (in other words,
when the center, foci, and
vertices line up above and
below each other, parallel
to the y-axis), then the
a2 goes with the y part of
the hyperbola's equation,
and the x part is
subtracted.
In "conics" form, an hyperbola's equation is always " =1".
The value of b gives the "height" of the "fundamental box" for the hyperbola (marked in grey in the first
picture above), and 2b is the length of the "conjugate" axis. This information doesn't help you graph
hyperbolas, though. Copyright Elizabeth Stapel 2010-2011 All Rights Reserved
For reasons you'll learn in calculus, the graph of an hyperbola gets fairly flat and straight when it gets far
away from its center. If you "zoom out" from the graph, it will look very much like an "X", with maybe a
little curviness near the middle. These "nearly straight" parts get very close to what are called the
"asymptotes" of the hyperbola. For an hyperbola centered at (h, k) and having fixed values a and b, the
asymptotes are given by the following equations:
Note that the only difference in the asymptote equations above is in the slopes of the straight lines: If a2 is
the denominator for the x part of the hyperbola's equation, then a is still in the denominator in the slope of
the asymptotes' equations; if a2 goes with the y part of the hyperbola's equation, then a goes in the
numerator of the slope in the asymptotes' equations.
