Suppose points are the left and right foci of the ellipse respectively, and point is on line : . When reaches the maximum, the value of ratio is ______.
Solution
Euclidean geometry tells us that, reaches the maximum only if the circle through points is tangent to the line at . Now suppose intercepts the -axis at point . Then , and that means . So
By using the power of points theorem, we have
As , , , so
Then we get
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