Theoretical framework.

Theoretical framework

In this project the phenomenon that is going to be recreated is parabola. [pic 1]

A parabola is the geometric place where the points of a plane are equidistant to a rectus line denominated as directrix and a fixed point called focus, which does not belong to the line.

The equation of a parabola is in the form: x2=4ay or y2= 4ax where the squared variable tells in which axis the parabola is going to be located and the direction in which is going to open.  If the equation is x2=4ay the parabola is going to open upwards or downwards. If the parabola has the equation y2= 4ax the parabola will open to the left or to the right.  [pic 2]

The sign of the value of 4a tells the direction in which is going to open, once knowing in which axis is located, if the parabola is on the x-axis and the value of 4a is positive it will opens upwards, on the contrary if its negative it will opens downwards; if the parabola is located on y-axis and the value is positive the parabola opens to the right, if its negative the parabola opens to the left.

In parabola we have the latus rectum which is a line parallel to the major axis that passes through the focus, in physics this happens to be the distance between the initial and final position of an object that makes parabola motion, which is called range.  To calculate the latus rectum is equal to 4a. In physics the range is obtained from:  R= v2*sin2Ɵ /g

As it can be seen in the image the latus rectum is the distance between two points and is parallel to the major axis, this two points called L and R, are the initial and final position of the object that performs the parabola in physics.

The vertex that in the case of the image is at the origin will be the maximum height of the object. The maximum height will depend on the angle in which the object is thrown in the case of physics.

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