The Owl and Its Parabolic Face

Owls are known to be a symbol of wisdom throughout history in ancient Greece, Asia, and America. They are also unquestionably mysterious predators. This mystery derives from the math they seem to be utilized during the hunt: owls can use the parabolic system to spot their prey.

This system is “parabolic facial formation,” which is a unique feature of owls, and it describes the design of their faces by way of which they adjust to incoming sounds and catches their prey even in the darkest nights. This is the same formation in the structures of radio telescopes by which new planets are discovered in the depths of space. From hunting stars in outer space to how owls hunt at night, parabolas in mathematics guide us to understand some of the marvels in the universe.

Parabolas can be seen frequently in both natural as well as in human-made monuments. A parabola is a stretched U-shaped geometric form that can be made by cross-sectioning a cone. Menaechmus (380–320 BC), a Greek mathematician and friend of Plato, is credited with discovering these conic sections. Additionally, he is credited with finding out that the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola are sections of a cone produced by the intersection of a plane with the surface of a cone. This credit derives from an epigram of Eratosthenes of Cyrene that refers to cutting the cone “in the triads of Menaechmus.” Parabolic…