title: How to find the minimum radius circle that encloses all the given points?
body: <p>Suppose I have some 1000 odd points on a plane.</p>
  
  <p>Then, what I think could be done is to discard the points that do not affect the radius of the circle in any way - <strong>the points through which the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_hull" rel="nofollow noreferrer">convex hull</a> does not pass</strong> [using one of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_hull_algorithms" rel="nofollow noreferrer">several algorithms</a>]. This leaves us with points that do matter.</p>
  
  <p>Now from here on, what can be done to find that minimum radius circle?</p>
  
  <p>I am looking to generalize this for ellipses once I understand how it can be done for circles.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Any link to some "public source code" would be helpful, so that I can modify it for ellipses.</strong></p>