Talk:Parabola

message: Some mention should be made that a quadratic Bezier curve is a parabolic segment. -SharkD 20:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added graphic, to be expanded. cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 21:38, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Quadratic Bezier curve is a parabolic segment

message: "Strictly, the adjective parabolic should be applied only to things that are shaped as a parabola, which is a two-dimensional shape. However, as shown in the last paragraph, the same adjective is commonly used for three-dimensional objects, such as parabolic reflectors, which are really paraboloids." This statement is obviously nonsense. Parabolic reflectors are, in fact, parabolic. What would they be called otherwise? "Paraboloidic"? This paragraph should be stricken from the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.255.2.98 (talk) 00:17, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and have removed it.  (You could have done so, too!) --JBL (talk) 01:16, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage of "parabolic" 

message: At a size of over 74K this article has become too unwieldy and should be split. It has been suggested that the main readership of this page consists of students whose interests generally don't include some of the more esoteric topics that are included in the page. I would think that a natural split would break out those topics of interest to this population and have a second page devoted to more advanced (that is, requiring more background or being less directly relevant) topics. Any suggestions or other ideas? --Bill Cherowitzo  (talk) 19:25, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest to split into Parabola (classic geometry) and Parabola (coordinates geometry). Probably, for modern students, the former would appear as advanced, and the latter more elementary. A century ago this would probably have been the opposite. D.Lazard (talk) 21:38, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think most students are interested in parabolas as graphs of quadratic functions. French, German and Spain WIKIs have convenient pages on this subject. If the article Quadratic function would be restricted to the parabola case, it could be convenient for English students. So, in the lead of parabola there should be at the top an obvious link to Quadratic function. But nevertheless, the parabola article should be cleaned up.--Ag2gaeh (talk) 08:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have moved toward the beginning the description as the graph of a function. Nevertheless, the remainder of the lead remains too technical and too detailed for most readers. D.Lazard (talk) 10:46, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split 

message: Note: This is about Special:Diff/905194553 ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:00, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The data that you are asking for are given in the section . D.Lazard (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basic equations 

message: In the section "Axis of symmetry parallel to the y axis" to the right of the text "More generally, if the vertex is ..."  There is a plot called, "Parabola: general case".  Given the matching text and the fact they appear together on the same horizontal position it is natural to assume the paragraph goes with the plot -- but it does not.  That text is actually describing the previous plot. This is confusing.
Lower down, even past the subsection, "remarks¨,  there is another full section called "General Case¨.   That is where the "Parabola: general" case plot belongs. I hope someone will move the plot down. 86.233.234.10 (talk) 15:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: . D.Lazard (talk) 16:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move Down the General Case Graph 

message: I'm not an expert in math, but isn't the sentence "The graph of a quadratic function y=ax²+bx+c is a parabola if x!=0 and, conversely, a parabola is the graph of a quadratic function if its axis is parallel to the y-axis." saying the same thing twice, or is there a particular usefulness to list the converse? --laagone talk 13:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The first assertion says that some parabolas are graphs of quadratic equations, and the second assertion says that every parabola can be obtained this way. That is, the indefinite article after "conversely" must be understood as "every" (this is standard mathematical jargon). I have edited the article for clarifying this. D.Lazard (talk) 14:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancy in lead