i) x^2/4 + y^2/1 = 1 ; found from the intercepts of the ellipse
ii) The height of the vertical cross section varies. How exactly does it vary? Well lets call the height of the parabolic arc h. Now this is important: h WILL BE A POINT ON THE PARABOLA! So if we find the equation of the parabola, we can deduce an expression for h dependant on x right? Ok so we know that h=ax^2+bx+c , since it's a parabola. Plug in some known points. When x=0, h=2 therefore c=2. When x=2, h=0 therefore 4a+2b=-2. When x=-2, h=0 therefore 4a-2b=-2. Solving simultaneously yields b=0 and a= -1/2 .
Thus, h= -x^2/2 +2 i.e. h=1/2(4-x^2)
iii) Not sure, I think you just plug in sqrt(3) into h for the height and for the width you use 2y= sqrt(4-x^2) and plug in sqrt(3). So I think the max height of the door is like 1/2 and the max width is 1
iv.) dV = dA*dx
We need to find the area bounded by each parabolic segment. There's two ways: one is a plug and chug formula given by A= 2/3 *base*height and the other is a little more intuitive. We use Simpson's Rule because it uses a parabolic arc to estimate the area under curve. When the given curve IS a parabola, it generates an exact value. So we take two sub-intervals, each of height y (don't confuse this height with the height of the parabola!).
Applying Simpsons rule: A=y/3 *( First Value + 4*Second Value + Last Value) .On the parabolic segment, the three given points are 0, h and 0 and the value of y is taken from the equation of the ellipse (y= sqrt(4-x^2)/2). The area works out to be sqrt(4-x^2)/6 * (0 + 4h + 0 ) i.e. A = 1/3(4-x^2)^3/2. The volume is the integral of this evaluated from -2 to sqrt(3)