Conic Sections

The cable of a uniformly loaded suspension bridge hangs in the form of a parabola. The roadway which is horizontal and 100 m long is supported by vertical wires attached to the cable, the longest wire being 30 m and the shortest being 6 m. Find the length of a supporting wire attached to the roadway 18 m from the middle.

We realize that the vertex is at the absolute bottom of the link. The beginning of the facilitate plane is taken as the vertex of the parabola, while its upward hub is brought the positive \[y\text{...

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