Parabola

This conical scone has been sliced through, and the slices are amusingly called "sconic sections". This slice, parallel to the edge of the cone, has produced a parabola.

The four conical scones in this picture have each had a different slice through them, so they illustrate, the four different kinds of conic section, from left to right, the circle, the ellipse, the parabola and the hyperbola.

A parabola is one of the four conic sections -- two-dimensional shapes from slices through a three-dimensional cone.

Shells and bullets, fired from cannons and firearms, follow a parabolic path, once they leave their barrel.

A strobe light has illuminated this bouncing ball, showing its parabolic path. Note also how it slow down towards the top of its path, only to speed up again, as it starts to fall back down to Earth.