The 2 Tangent Parabolas

Calculus Level 3

On a vertical parabola P 1 P_1 , pick a point T T . Another vertical parabola P 2 P_2 is tangent to P 1 P_1 at T T . Spanning through all possible parabolas P 2 P_2 , what is the locus of the focus of P 2 P_2 ?

Cubic 2 Rays Hyperbola Line 2 Lines Ray

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1 solution

Daniel Liu
Apr 10, 2015

Consider the vertical line passing through T T . The reflection of the vertical line about the line tangent to P 1 P_1 and P 2 P_2 through T T must pass through both the focus of P 1 P_1 and the focus of P 2 P_2 through the reflective property of parabolas that all light shone vertically in a parabola reflects through the focus.

But this means that focus of P 1 P_1 , P 2 P_2 , and the point T T are collinear. Since P 1 P_1 and T T are predefined, then P 2 P_2 's locus must be the line \boxed{\text{line}} passing through the focus of P 1 P_1 and the point T T .

Ah... crap... I derived everything....

Julian Poon - 6 years, 2 months ago

@Daniel Liu

really brilliant logic........

Yash Sharma - 6 years, 2 months ago

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