The expression 51.15x gives the area, in square meters, of forest damaged by a fire as a function of minutes since the fire was discovered. How many square meters of forest was damaged when the fire was discovered?
Q. The expression 51.15x gives the area, in square meters, of forest damaged by a fire as a function of minutes since the fire was discovered. How many square meters of forest was damaged when the fire was discovered?
Understand the expression: Understand the expression and the situation.The expression given is 5×1.15(x), where x represents the number of minutes since the fire was discovered, and the expression gives the area of forest damaged in square meters.To find out how much area was damaged when the fire was discovered, we need to evaluate the expression at x=0, because that represents the time the fire was discovered.
Substitute x=0: Substitute x=0 into the expression.The expression becomes 5×1.150, because we are looking for the area at the moment the fire was discovered.
Calculate the value: Calculate the value of the expression when x=0.Any number raised to the power of 0 is 1. Therefore, 1.15(0) equals 1.The expression simplifies to 5×1, which equals 5.
Interpret the result: Interpret the result.The calculation shows that when the fire was discovered x=0, the area of forest damaged was 5 square meters.
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