A lamp located with its base at (3,0) has an unspecified height and casts a shadow on the ellipse 𝑥^2+4𝑦^2 = 5 such that (−5,0) is on the edge of the shadow. How tall is the lamp?

Answer 1

(-5,0) is not on the ellipse.
Not sure what's going on here.

Answer 2

I don't know either. It was a homework problem and I was confused.

Answer 3

yeah. And it casts a shadow, but a shadow of what?
is there some object somewhere between (3,0) and (-5,0)?
If so, how tall is the object?
If this is all you got, then it's a very poorly worded question.

Answer 4

yeah... I don't know what to do. I'll just look up the problem on the Internet to see if there's any info about it.