C.a.R. > Applications > Extremal Values > Distance to Parabola

There are three local minima of the distance function. Only one is the total minimum.

Technical Information

The derivative of the distance function (squared) was computed by hand. Using the solver "zero()" one of the zeros was computed. Dividing out this zero, a new function is solved for the remaining zeros, using "zero()" again. To separate the zeros, the maximum of the parabola was computed using the "max()" function.

The minimum of the three values is enhanced using conditional formatting.