What is a good parabolic shape in the real world that i can find information about on the web?

Question

I need this for my math class before Wednesday! HELP!!!

Answer 1

I think the St. Louis Arch is a partial parabola. Or how about a satellite dish?

Here's another interesting phenomenon. Some museums set up devices that look like satellite dishes so you can try out a similar effect:

Whispering Gallery in NYC
Talk into one corner of this room and your friend in the other corner will hear it.
Sounds do interesting things in round shapes, parabolas will bounce sound from a large area into one spot, or from that one spot to a large area and are used extensively in theaters. Another interesting phonomenon is a Whisper Gallery where you can stand along one wall and sound bounces along the sphere, travelling straight and then bouncing off the wall until it hits the wall again, continuing around the inner surface of the circle.

Well, I just learned that there's one in Grand Central Station.

In the arched hallway outside the entrance, check out the engineering magic of the "whispering corners." When you and a companion stand in opposite corners and whisper, you can hear each other as well as if you were standing a foot apart.
- http://www.newyorkmetro.com/pages/details/4218.htm

Answer 2

1. The reflector behind the light bulb in vehicle headlights.
2. Radio Telescopes - Like the Aracebo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
3. Path of near-Earth comets.

Answer 3

The shape of a sattelite receiver or radio telescope antenna.

Answer 4

try the path a ball takes when flying through air.

Just about anything that involves gravity. Except for power lines, they have their own special curve.

Answer 5

the lens in your eye
the largest radio receiver/telescope in the world.
also look up "laser intensification using parabolic lens"