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Q. The minimum area of a triangle formed by any tangent to the ellipse $\frac{x^{2}}{16}+\frac{y^{2}}{81}=1$ and the co-ordinate axes is :

JEE MainJEE Main 2014Application of Derivatives

Solution:

Let $P (4 \cos \theta, 9 \sin \theta)$ be a point on ellipse
equation of tangent $\frac{x}{4} \cos \theta+\frac{y}{9} \sin \theta=1$
Let $ A \& B$ are point of intersection of tangent at $P$ with co-ordinate axes.
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$A \left(\frac{4}{\cos \theta}, 0\right) B \left(0, \frac{9}{\sin \theta}\right)$
Area of $\Delta OAB =\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{4}{\cos \theta}\right)\left(\frac{9}{\sin \theta}\right)=\frac{36}{\sin 2 \theta}$
$(\text { Area })_{\min }=36$ as $\sin 2 \theta=1$