What is a parabola?

when graphed a parabola makes a U shape, if you remember this you should be fine in the lower level math classes, a more formal deffinition is: a conic section generated by the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface. A parabola can also be defined as locus of points in a plane which are equidistant from a given point (the focus) and a given line (the directrix).

A parabola is the set of all points in the plane equidistant from a given line (the conic section directories) and a given point not on the line (the focus). The focal parameter (i.e., the distance between the directrix and focus) is therefore given by , where is the distance from the vertex to the directrix or focus. The surface of revolution obtained by rotating a parabola about its axis of symmetry is called a paraboloid.

Curvature Shape

It's ax^2 +bx+c

b/2a to find vertex

It looks like half of an ellipse.

http://www.mathwords.com/p/parabola.htm