Posted by Erica on Friday, August 31, 2012 at 10:41am.
Take the vertex of the parabola at x=0.
Then the equation of the parabola (opening downwards) is y=12-ax^2 where a is a constant to be found.
We know that y=0 at x=±24 (half span), so
0=12-a(24^2)
=>
a=12/576=1/48
The equation of the parabola is therefore
y=12-x^2/48.
I will let you finish the problem.
all these numbers kind of confuse me. Im not sure what ^ means. Right now the only equation i have learned is y= a(x-s)(x-t)
x^2 means x squared, or x².
If you just started with parabolas, it won't hurt to say what you've learned so far.
Let's start over:
We first assume the vertex of the parabola is at x=0.
We know that y=0 at x=±24, or
y=a(x-24)(x+24).
We also know that y=12 at x=0, i.e.
12=a(0-24)(0+24)=-576
so a=12/(-576)=-1/48
The equation of the parabola is therefore:
y=(x-24)(x+24)/48
Can you then continue?
Correction to one of the above lines:
12=a(0-24)(0+24)=-576a
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