Observe the shapes of the ellipses in Examples 2 and 4. Which ellipse has the smaller eccentricity? Confirm your answer by computing the eccentricity of each ellipse.
The eccentricity of an ellipse is defined as e = c / a. For an ellipse, 0 < c < a, so 0 < e < 1, when e is close to 0, an ellipse appears to be nearly circular. When e is close to 1, an ellipse is very flat.