Category:Parabola

Pa*rab"o*la, n.; pl. Parabolas. Etym: [nl., fr. Gr. Parable, and cf. Parabole.] (geom.) (a) a kind of curve; one of the conic sections formed by the Intersection of the surface of a cone with a plane parallel to one of Its sides. It is a curve, any point of which is equally distant from A fixed point, called the focus, and a fixed straight line, called The directrix. See focus. (b) one of a group of curves defined by the equation y = axn where n Is a positive whole number or a positive fraction. For the cubical Parabola n = 3; for the semicubical parabola n = cubical, and Semicubical. The parabolas have infinite branches, but no rectilineal Asymptotes.