Parabolas are frequently used in physics and engineering for things such as the design of automobile headlight reflectors and the paths of ballistic missiles. Parabolas are frequently encountered as graphs of quadratic functions.
The same effects occur with sound and other forms of energy. This reflective property is the basis of many practical uses of parabolas. The parabola has many important applications, from a parabolic antenna or parabolic microphone to automobile headlight reflectors to the design of ballistic missiles.
