A conic section is a curve that results from the intersection of a right circular cone and a plane passing through that cone.  These conic sections are circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas.  We will focus on the conic sections that are parabolas.

A parabola is the set or collection of all points P in the plane that are the same distance from a fixed point F as they are from a fixed line D.  The point F is the focus of the parabola.  The line D is the directrix of the parabola.  So mathematically a parabola may be defined as the set of all points P such that

                                              d(F,P) = d(P,D)

the distance from F to P is equal to the distance from P to D.

Using the above options, we will look at the parts of a parabola, how to derive the equation of a parabola having its vertex at (0,0), how to derive the equation of a parabola whose vertex is not at (0,0), and how to solve problems involving parabolas using the geometric definition.  Practice problems are also available with solutions.