Yesterday I wrote about parabolic mirrors. I pointed out that parallel rays hitting a parabola typically do not reflect back to a focal point. That happens only when the rays are parallel to the axis of the parabola. Then my friend Dan sent me an email encouraging me to look at the envelope of the…
Tag: focal point
Parabolas and focal points
A colleague from another department stopped by my office this morning with a question about parabolas and parabolic mirrors. In the simplest terms, his question was the following: When parallel rays reflect off a parabola, do they always converge to a focal point? As we can see in the diagram below, rays that are parallel…
David Richeson: Division by Zero 