PARABOLAS

A parabola is one of the conic sections. We have already seen parabolas which open upward or downward, as graphs of quadratic
functions. Here, we will see parabolas opening to the left or right. We will study parabolas from a geometric rather than an
algebraic point of view. We begine with the geometric definition of a parabola and show how this leads to the algebraic formula
that we are already familiar with.

This definition is illustrated in Figure 3. The vertex V of the parabola lies halfway between the focus and the directrix, and the axis
of symmetry is the line that runs through the focus perpendicular to the directrix.