I hope I am not bothering you in any way, but there is a
question that has been bothering me for awhile now. I have asked
my teacher but he does not know the answer. I have been
researching it online and in some text books for about a month
now and have come up with nothing. I do not want this to seem
like my math teacher knows nothing, he is a very intelligent
man. I have taken Calculus 1 and 2 in high school and am leaving
for college to study engineering in the fall. The question I
have which I would appreciate any little bit of information or
direction on is: Where does the 4 come from in the parabola
equation: (x – h) 2 = 4 p (y–k) ? This has been bothering me
simply because I wish to know the why and how of things. I am
sorry if I am taking up you time and I appreciate you for
reading my question. Thank you. You realize of course that the
textbook could easily get rid of the factor 4, by simply
introducing a new constant q = 4p, which leads to the same
formula but without the puzzling factor. The fact t