English

Dynamics of ellipses inscribed in triangles

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2016-04-06 v3

Abstract

Suppose that we are given two distinct points, P1P_1 and P2P_2, in the interior of a triangle, TT. Is there always an ellipse inscribed in TT which also passes through P1P_1 and P2P_2 ? If yes, how many such ellipses ? We answer those questions in this paper. It turns out that, except for P1P_1 and P2P_2 on a union of three line segments, there are four such ellipses which pass through P1P_1 and P2P_2. We also answer a similar question if instead P1P_1 and P2P_2 lie on the boundary of TT. Finally, an interesting related question, is the following: Given a point, PP, in the interior of a triangle, TT, and a real number, rr, is there always an ellipse inscribed in TT which passes through PP and has slope rr at PP ? Again, if yes, how many such ellipses ? The answer is somewhat different than for the two point case without specifying a slope. There are cases where no such ellipse exists.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1504.05141,
  title  = {Dynamics of ellipses inscribed in triangles},
  author = {Alan Horwitz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.05141},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

21 pages, no figures. The paper has been shortened and the proofs have been simplified. In particular, we worked directly with the system of quadratics in two variables rather than working with the functions obtained by solving those quadratics

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:19:11.290Z