The Parabola

[jiacinto]

y=x^2

why is this function so important?

[La_Serpiente]

1. War Machine

so you can find the trajectory of a missle.

[kixot]

5. Ballistics, right.

[Guaranteed]

11. With wind resistance, though...

;)

[kixot]

2. It's a conic section.

It's one of the traces made when intersecting a plane with a cone.

[jiacinto]

3. what relevance does that have to the real world

nt

[La_Serpiente]

4. So you can fly a plane

in the air force.

[kixot]

6. Satelite dishes are manufactured according to the parabola

The backs of the headlights in cars is shaped to a parabolic curve.

The plot of a projectile follows a parabola due to the square in the position variable in the equation that describes acceleration due to gravity.

Fact is, you have evidence of the parabola all around you but you don't realize it because:

a) You're not a mathematician
b) You're not a physicist
c) You're not an engineer
d) You're otherwise not in a profession that needs to know these things.

[sujan]

13. you can trace out the trajectory path of a missile

[dfong63]

7. besides the reasons already given,

the parabola is a nice smooth, well behaved function that is a good model for learning about differentiation and integration.

a lot of practical problems that you will see over and over again, give rise to quadratic formulas, where the answers are the "roots" of the formula. studying the parabola can help you understand why the problems may have 0, 1, or 2 answers.

also, you can use pieces of parabolas to approximate other smooth functions.

[FlaGranny]

8. Your answer made me chuckle -

you sound just like my youngest son, and I have no idea what he's talking about either. :-) I do NOT have a mathematical mind.

[ZenLefty]

9. That's the shape your body parts will sag to as you get older.

n/t

[BeHereNow]

10. If you aim your heart

at JUST the right trajectory, as indicated by the diagram,
you will find true love!
I thought everyone knew that!
the science stuff is just a disguise...
Ready, set, AIM.
BHN

[Guaranteed]

12. It runs the world.

All statistics involve bell-curves in one way or another, it seems.

[dreissig]

14. Path of a Home Run

Barry Bonds is MVP for the third time in a row. He hits fly balls in nice parabolic arcs. He may or may not know the graph of that equation, but it doesn't matter. When the ball comes in, he swings at it.