SOLUTION: Problem: Find the slope of the line through the following pair of points (-5,-3) and (-5,2)

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Question 78960: Problem:
Find the slope of the line through the following pair of points
(-5,-3) and (-5,2)


Answer by jim_thompson5910(21685) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Solved by pluggable solver: Finding the slope
To find the slope going from (-5,-3) to (-5,2) we are going to calculate the change in y over the change in x, or the rise over the run. The change is the difference between the two coordinates. So if the y-coordinate of a point goes from -3 to 2, the change in these numbers is 5 (since 2--3=5). If the x-coordinate changes from -5 to -5, then the change is 0 (since -5--5=0). So to calculate the slope we use this formula:
Slope:

m=%28change_in_y%29%2F%28change_in_x%29=rise%2Frun where m is the slope

So now we let y%5B2%5D=2,y%5B1%5D=-3,x%5B2%5D=-5,x%5B1%5D=-5Now plug these numbers into the slope formula:

m=%28y%5B2%5D-y%5B1%5D%29%2F%28x%5B2%5D-x%5B1%5D%29=%282-%28-3%29%29%2F%28-5-%28-5%29%29+=+5%2F0Since the two points have the same x-coordinate, we have a denominator of zero. Remember we cannot divide by zero. In other words, this is not possible: x%2F0 (we cannot divide any number by 0) This means the slope is undefined, and because we don't have any change in x, we have a vertical line at x=-5