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Parabola   Listen
noun
Parabola  n.  (pl. parabolas)  (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 = ax^(n) where n is a positive whole number or a positive fraction. For the cubical parabola n = 3; for the semicubical parabola n = 3/2. See under Cubical, and Semicubical. The parabolas have infinite branches, but no rectilineal asymptotes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Parabola" Quotes from Famous Books



... hundred yards, so she confines her attentions to front-line trenches. Her modus operandi is to discharge a large cylindrical bomb into the air. The bomb, which is about fifteen inches long and some eight inches in diameter, describes a leisurely parabola, performing grotesque somersaults on the way, and finally falls with a soft thud into the trench, or against the parapet. There, after an interval of ten seconds, Minnie's offspring explodes; and as she contains about thirty pounds of dynamite, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... teapot stood there also. There was no furniture but a low wooden bed, one chair, a settle, and a broad shelf. On the shelf was a slate scrabbled all over with geometrical figures, and one of these figures was a parabola with two tangents drawn touching. This puzzled me much. I sat down to warm my hands and my half-frozen face, and when ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... arcuation[obs3], devexity|, turn, deviation, detour, sweep; curl, curling; bough; recurvity[obs3], recurvation[obs3]; sinuosity &c. 248. kink. carve, arc, arch, arcade, vault, bow, crescent, half-moon, lunule[obs3], horseshoe, loop, crane neck; parabola, hyperbola; helix, spiral; catenary[obs3], festoon; conchoid[obs3], cardioid; caustic; tracery; arched ceiling, arched roof; bay window, bow window. sine curve; spline, spline curve, spline function; obliquity &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... another important difference between the orbits of the comets and those of the planets. In the case of the latter the orbit is that of an ellipse, while in the case of the comet the orbit may be either that of a parabola or a hyperbola, which may be looked upon as elongated ellipses open at one end. There are, however, some comets whose orbits are perfectly elliptical, and whose return may be calculated with a ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... miraculously fast, never employs a straight line except to cut off an angle and so obtain a curve, neither does man himself always rely upon it. The bullet which he aims direct proceeds by a curve, and when you wish to strike a certain point in space, you impel your bombshell along its cruel parabola. None of your men of science have drawn from this fact the simple deduction that the Curve is the law of the material worlds and the Straight line that of the Spiritual worlds; one is the theory of finite creations, the other the theory of the infinite. Man, who alone in the world has ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... surface of a sphere are respectively two thirds of the solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral, and the quadrature of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the conclusions he arrived ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... romanos oyeron esta parabola y comprendieron su significado, regresando muy contentos a la ...
— A First Spanish Reader • Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy



Words linked to "Parabola" :   conic, parabolical



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