Q. For the function f(x)=x2−10, find the slope of the secant line between x=−6 and x=1.Answer:
Calculate Function Values: To find the slope of the secant line between two points on a function, we use the formula for slope, which is the change in y divided by the change in x (rise over run). This is given by the formula (f(x2)−f(x1))/(x2−x1), where x1 and x2 are the x-values of the two points.
Find Two Points: First, we need to find the y-values for the function at x=−6 and x=1. We do this by plugging these x-values into the function f(x)=x2−10. For x=−6: f(−6)=(−6)2−10=36−10=26. For x=1: f(1)=(1)2−10=1−10=−9.
Calculate Slope: Now we have the two points on the function: (−6,26) and (1,−9). We can use these to find the slope of the secant line.Slope = (f(1)−f(−6))/(1−(−6))=(−9−26)/(1+6)=−35/7=−5.
Final Result: The slope of the secant line between x=−6 and x=1 for the function f(x)=x2−10 is −5.
More problems from Find equations of tangent lines using limits