What is a practical application of using the focus and directrix of a parabola?

What is a practical application of using the focus and directrix of a parabola?

Think about satellite dishes

Headlights of your car.
Searchlights.
Radio and optical telescopes.

And that involves the directrix how?

Organic telemetry

Headlights are made from LEDs with more lumens than the sun nowadays, completely irrelevant
>optical telescopes
kek

radio dishes and satellite dishes would function better if the receiving transmitter was the convex analogy to the concave's floating receiver at the focus, aka this is how actual radio broadcasters and consumer receivers work - directionless with high surface area - that this method isn't used for satellite television or internet is why satellite television and internet is unreliable.

If your aim is to direct the signal (and reduce effective transmission), then you use a retardbola.

Launching a projectile through the middle of a gap in a wall seems like it would be practical.

The gap in the wall would be represented as the distance between the focus and the directrix.

There are infinite solutions to launching a projectile through a gap in the wall though depending on the launch position.

I assume what that represents is launching a projectile through a gap in the wall the the least amount of force, which would be pretty useful, but I'm just assuming.

learned this in pre-calc. forgot about it while in calc 1. will i use it again if i take calc 2, calc 3 or Mech Engineering?

cassegrain antenna, maybe

a parabola is mostly a tool for making simple example problems, in my experience

ah yes, MechE I
no you won't use it in calc 1,2,3

don't know if any mechE classes require it

The directrix defines the shape of the parabola.
Rarely plays a DIRECT function, but without it you have to slice a log at an angle.

Point taken that modern headlights are often LEDs, but still use reflectors to make the most of every lumen.
Remainder of comment is sheer technobabble. You've watched too much "ST:TNG", retardbola.

should add that even if it does, you can't expect an engineer to remember some seemingly useless trivia from precalc, so it'll be retaught (the textbook will almost definitely have it) if it actually becomes important

thanks for the insult user. :)

if it makes you feel better i'm also an engineer

>I assume what that represents is launching a projectile through a gap in the wall the the least amount of force, which would be pretty useful, but I'm just assuming.

Is this user's assumption true?

>star trek technobabble
oh god fucking yuck my man stop making me feel these feelings. How can you be this fuckin retarded to have not understood the post.

memes

>ay gurl u like directrix
>ya
>how about directrix dick in yo mouth LELELELELELELEELELELELELELELELELELE

not that guy but your post was garbage

Back to high school, OP

>He doesn't know about the inverse square law.
Imagine the power needed to transmit without the dish.

Coordinate independence.

Nah man, clearly the better solution is to blast all your power into space directly away form the earth. Much more efficient.

Brainlet mad he didn't get the correct answer on a final.

My nigger its like you've never seen a tesla coil.

the fuck are you talking about?

Nope.

>this stupid fucking thread is about to die
feels good man