Parabolas

Parabolas are weird U shaped lines. They consist of the vertex, focus, directrix, and the axis of symmetry. The equation for a parabola that signifies it's a parabola is (h - x)^2 = (y -k). The x and y will switch depending on if the parabola is horizontal or vertical. The vertex is just the h and k values that would make each side equal to 0. The focus is (h, k+c), the directrix is k- c and the axis of symmetry is whatever x is. The c value comes from c^2 = a^2 - b^2.