The meaning of a Quadratic

[Infinitely]

Could someone "define" what a quadratic is supposed to show in a practical sense? Basically I want to know the "why" about the graph of a quadratic.

-Thanks

 

[JeffM]

Could someone "define" what a quadratic is supposed to show in a practical sense? Basically I want to know the "why" about the graph of a quadratic.

-Thanks

Quadratics come up in many real-life situations. One that is very frequent is the Newtonian formula for distance traveled under constant acceleration, 2a, applied for time t to an object with initial velocity b and initial position c.

\(\displaystyle d = at^2 + bt + c.\)

As an example of this formula, the force of gravity applies a virtually constant acceleration to all objects close to the surface of the earth. Consequently, the formula is useful for describing the effects of gravity on motion. Notice that the formula is a quadratic.

 

[Infinitely]

Thank you all for the responses