English

Ellipses Inscribed in Parallelograms

Metric Geometry 2012-02-15 v1 Classical Analysis and ODEs

Abstract

We prove that there exists a unique ellipse of minimal eccentricity, E_{I}, inscribed in a parallelogram, D. We also prove that the smallest nonnegative angle between equal conjugate diameters of E_{I} equals the smallest nonnegative angle between the diagonals of D. We also prove that if E_{M} is the unique ellipse inscribed in a rectangle, R, which is tangent at the midpoints of the sides of R, then E_{M} is the unique ellipse of minimal eccentricity, maximal area, and maximal arc length inscribed in R. Let D be any convex quadrilateral. In previous papers, the author proved that there is a unique ellipse of minimal eccentricity, E_{I}, inscribed in D, and a unique ellipse, E_{O}, of minimal eccentricity circumscribed about D. We defined D to be bielliptic if E_{I} and E_{O} have the same eccentricity. In this paper we show that a parallelogram, D, is bielliptic if and only if the square of the length of one of the diagonals of D equals twice the square of the length of one of the sides of D.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0808.0297,
  title  = {Ellipses Inscribed in Parallelograms},
  author = {Alan Horwitz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.0297},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

Submitted for publication to the Glasgow Mathematical Journal. 13 pages, no figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:07:04.964Z