Question 79790: Find the slope of the line through the following pairs of points
(-5,-3)and (-5,2)
Found 2 solutions by jim_thompson5910, tutor_paul:
Answer by jim_thompson5910(21685)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!Check out this solver for more help with finding the slope
| 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  ). If the x-coordinate changes from -5 to -5, then the change is 0 (since  ). So to calculate the slope we use this formula:
Slope:
 where m is the slope
So now we let  , , , Now plug these numbers into the slope formula:
 Since 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:  (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 |
Answer by tutor_paul(427)  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!The slope of a line is  which is the change in Y divided by the change in X. Since they are giving you 2 points through which the line goes, you can find the slope as follows:
Which for the 2 given points, is:
Simplifying this gives you a zero in the denominator, which means the slope of this line is infinite - i.e. it is a vertical line (a line parallel to the Y-axis).
Good Luck,
tutor_paul@yahoo.com
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