The parabola's reflection property makes it fundamental in engineering: satellite dishes, car headlights, solar concentrators, and acoustic reflectors all use parabolic shapes. In physics, the trajectory of a projectile under uniform gravity is a parabola (ignoring air resistance). The suspension cables of a uniformly loaded bridge form a parabola (not a catenary). In JEE, the reflection property appears in optics problems where rays parallel to the axis converge at the focus. The parametric form is used in problems involving motion along parabolic paths. The evolute and related curves appear in advanced problems about curvature and osculating circles.