Elliptic curves play a natural and important role in elliptic cohomology. In
earlier work with I. Kriz, thes elliptic curves were interpreted physically in
two ways: as corresponding to the intersection of M2 and M5 in the context of
(the reduction of M-theory to) type IIA and as the elliptic fiber leading to
F-theory for type IIB. In this paper we elaborate on the physical setting for
various generalized cohomology theories, including elliptic cohomology, and we
note that the above two seemingly unrelated descriptions can be unified using
Sen's picture of the orientifold limit of F-theory compactification on K3,
which unifies the Seiberg-Witten curve with the F-theory curve, and through
which we naturally explain the constancy of the modulus that emerges from
elliptic cohomology. This also clarifies the orbifolding performed in the
previous work and justifies the appearance of the w_4 condition in the elliptic
refinement of the mod 2 part of the partition function. We comment on the
cohomology theory needed for the case when the modular parameter varies in the
base of the elliptic fibration.Comment: 23 pages, typos corrected, minor clarification