Equation of the Circle Equation of a Circle that is Not Centered at the Origin One advantage of working on coordinated axes is that the points on the circle, and the center, can be localized in the axes, and can be represented by an equation, as shown above. which is known as the General Equation of a Circle.
The equation is then a little simpler. Since the center is at the origin, h and k are both zero. So the general form becomes. which simplifies down to the basic form of the circle equation: For more on this see Basic Equation of a Circle. Parametric form. Instead of using the Pythagorean Theorem to solve the right triangle in the circle above.
Writing the Equation of a Circle Not only do you need to know how to graph a circle, but you also need to know how to write the equation of a circle when you see a graph. To do this, you must once again remember the pattern for a circle: in which (h, k) is the center of the circle and r is the radius.
Before deriving the equation of a circle, let us focus on what is a circle?. A circle is a set of all points which are equally spaced from a fixed point in a plane. The fixed point is called the centre of the circle. The distance between the centre and any point on the circumference is called the radius of the circle.
A circle is a plane figure bounded by one curved line, and such that all straight lines drawn from a certain point within it to the bounding line, are equal. The bounding line is called its circumference and the point, its centre. — Euclid, Elements, Book I. Annulus: a ring-shaped object, the region bounded by two concentric circles.
In this video, the instructor shows how to find the equation of a circle given its center point and a tangent line to it. To do this, take a graph and plot the given point and the tangent on that graph. Now, from the center of the circle, measure the perpendicular distance to the tangent line. This gives us the radius of the circle.