Parabola - Equation in Cartesian Coordinates

Equation in Cartesian Coordinates

Let the directrix be the line x = −p and let the focus be the point (p, 0). If (x, y) is a point on the parabola then, by Pappus' definition of a parabola, it is the same distance from the directrix as the focus; in other words:

Squaring both sides and simplifying produces

as the equation of the parabola. By interchanging the roles of x and y one obtains the corresponding equation of a parabola with a vertical axis as

The equation can be generalized to allow the vertex to be at a point other than the origin by defining the vertex as the point (h, k). The equation of a parabola with a vertical axis then becomes

The last equation can be rewritten

so the graph of any function which is a polynomial of degree 2 in x is a parabola with a vertical axis.

More generally, a parabola is a curve in the Cartesian plane defined by an irreducible equation — one that does not factor as a product of two not necessarily distinct linear equations — of the general conic form

with the parabola restriction that

where all of the coefficients are real and where A and C are not both zero. The equation is irreducible if and only if the determinant of the 3×3 matrix

is non-zero: that is, if (AC - B2/4)F + BED/4 - CD2/4 - AE2/4 ≠ 0. The reducible case, also called the degenerate case, gives a pair of parallel lines, possibly real, possibly imaginary, and possibly coinciding with each other.