A parabola with a horizontal directrix has it's focus at (2,5). If the point (7,-7) is on the parabola:

227 Views Asked by At

A. Find a possible equation for the directeix.

B. Using your results from A. Find the vertex.

C. Write an equation for the parabola

This question is giving me some major difficulty I have spent 3 days on this question and I cannot solve it, and I am hoping for some assistance.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

Question A:

By the definition of a parabola, the distance from the focus to any point on the parabola equals the distance from that point to the directrix.

The distance from the focus to the point $(7,-7)$ is $13$. You know the directrix is horizontal, so it has the equation $y=c$ for some constant $c$.

Which value of $c$ will make the distance from the point $(7,-7)$ to the line $y=c$ equal to $13$? Think about it: it is very easy. There are two answers to this, and it is obvious which one is the desired directrix.

Question B:

The vertex is the midpoint of the line segment from the focus to the directrix and perpendicular to the directrix. Which point is that?

Question C:

There are several ways to answer that. The easiest depends on the information you already know about the parabola. Do you know that the equation for a vertical parabola with vertex at point $(h,k)$ is

$$y-k=\frac{(x-h)^2}{4p}$$

where $p$ is the distance between the focus and the vertex?