Name: Kuang
Who is asking: Student
Level: Middle

Question:
-Who is credited for working with or studying the Parabola?

-What is a conic section?

-What does a parabola look like?

-How is a parabola formed?

-Where and how are parabolas used today in the real world?

Please answer as soon as possible, before February 4, 2002!!! I need an expert's interview for a math project for school. Please answer all of the questions, PLEASE!!!Especially the first questions!!! Thanks!

The place where I go to find an answer to a question like "Who is credited for working with or studying the Parabola?" is Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics. Look under P for parabola and under C for conic section.

I then went to Google and searched for conic section. One of the nice results was Dave's Math Tables, which includes diagrams of cones, and the sections that result from slicing cones by planes.

For the question of how parabolas are used go to Math Central and search in the Quandaries and Queries section for the word parabola. The note called Quadratics gives a couple of examples.