Parabola and car (head) lights

Explore how the geometric properties of a parabola are used in car lights, that is how beams from the yellow point source reflect... (further reading)

This is a Java Applet created using GeoGebra from www.geogebra.org - it looks like you don't have Java installed, please go to www.java.com

Compare the bellow pictures, which indicate high-beam (flash lights) and low-beam (dimmed lights) ... and think what this has to do with the 'shape of car's headlight bulb'.

D.Kobal with GeoGebra

See some other nice examples.