Area of an Ellipse without using Calculus Date: 11/28/97 at
11:56:35 From: Vinay Subject: How do you find the area of an
oval How do you find the area of an oval? Date: 12/04/97 at
13:13:34 From: Doctor Mark Subject: Re: How do you find the area
of an oval Hi Vinay, I'm hoping that by "oval" you mean
"ellipse," because that's the question I know the answer to. If
you're just interested in the answer, it's at the end of the
message. If you want to know why, keep reading. Because yours
was such a good question, it will take a little while to prove
the result. An ellipse is really just a circle that got
stretched out in one direction, but not the other. Here's how
you can think about it. Take a square sheet of rubber and draw a
coordinate system on it, so that it looks like a rubbery sort of
graph paper, all covered by squares, each square having a side
of, say, 1 inch. Then draw a circle of radius R on this rubbery
graph paper. Now take opposite sides of this rubbery graph
paper, and pull. I hope you can see th