SOLUTION: An aquarium wants to install a new fish tank with a parabolic glass dome fitted at its bottom to allow visitors to look at the marine life from below. The glass dome will be 60 fee
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Question 1180068: An aquarium wants to install a new fish tank with a parabolic glass dome fitted at its bottom to allow visitors to look at the marine life from below. The glass dome will be 60 feet in diameter and will have a depth of 4 feet. Find the equation of the parabolic cross-section of the dome.
a. y^2=16/30x
b. y^2=4/15x
c. y=1/225x^2
d. y=15/14x^2
e. y=1/15x^2 Answer by greenestamps(13203) (Show Source):
Good luck having a wall of an aquarium with a cross section in the shape of a parabola of the form y^2=ax....!
We can quickly eliminate answer choices a. and b.
Consider the vertex of the parabolic cross section to be at (0,0). Then, since the dome has a depth of 4 feet and a width of 60 feet, the parabolic function must have the value 4 at x values of 30 and -30.
Use the general form of the equation of a parabola with vertex at the origin to quickly find the answer to the problem.
