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A parabolic segment is the region bounded by a parabola and line. To find the area of a parabolic segment, Archimedes considers a certain inscribed triangle. The base of this triangle is the given chord of the parabola, and the third vertex is the point on the parabola such that the tangent to the parabola at that point is parallel to the chord.
It is shown above that this distance equals the focal length of the parabola, which is the distance from the vertex to the focus. The focus and the point F are therefore equally distant from the vertex, along the same line, which implies that they are the same point. Therefore, the point F, defined above, is the focus of the parabola.
Parabola: the set of points equidistant from a fixed point (the focus) and a line (the directrix). Hyperbola: the set of points for each of which the absolute value of the difference between the distances to two given foci is a constant. Ellipse: the set of points for each of which the sum of the distances to two given foci is a constant
It is also possible to describe all conic sections in terms of a single focus and a single directrix, which is a given line not containing the focus. A conic is defined as the locus of points for each of which the distance to the focus divided by the distance to the directrix is a fixed positive constant, called the eccentricity e.
A family of conic sections of varying eccentricity share a focus point and directrix line, including an ellipse (red, e = 1/2), a parabola (green, e = 1), and a hyperbola (blue, e = 2). The conic of eccentricity 0 in this figure is an infinitesimal circle centered at the focus, and the conic of eccentricity ∞ is an infinitesimally separated ...
In the geometry of plane curves, a vertex is a point of where the first derivative of curvature is zero. [1] This is typically a local maximum or minimum of curvature, [ 2 ] and some authors define a vertex to be more specifically a local extremum of curvature. [ 3 ]
Throughout, it is assumed that is a real or complex vector space.. For any ,,, say that lies between [2] and if and there exists a < < such that = + ().. If is a subset of and , then is called an extreme point [2] of if it does not lie between any two distinct points of .
The vertex of a parabola is the place where it turns; hence, it is also called the turning point. If the quadratic function is in vertex form, the vertex is ( h , k ) . Using the method of completing the square, one can turn the standard form