Introduction to Parabola

In this tutorial we shall study the parabola which is obtained by the intersection of the plane and a right circular cone when the plane is parallel to an element of the cone. The conic is a parabola if eccentricity is equal to 1. Following is the analytic definition of the parabola.

Definition of Parabola:
The parabola is defined as the locus of a point $P\left( {x,y} \right)$ which moves so that it is always equidistant from a given line and a given point. The line through the focus which perpendicular to the directrix is called axis of the parabola. The point mid-way between the directrix and the focus is the vertex of the parabola. The line through the focus perpendicular to the axis and intercepted by the parabola is called the Latus Rectum of a Focal Chord and its length of the focal chord is called the focal width.

There are so many applications of parabola in everyday life, for example if throw a ball it will attain the parabolic path or when fighter jet fire a missile it will also moves in a parabolic path. One of the important applications of parabola is parabolic dish antenna.