MATH 1520 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tangent
Document Summary
The equation of a line can be written in 3 different ways: y = mx + b (slope intercept form, ax + by + c (standard form, y yo = m(x xo) (slope point form) Find the equation of the tangent line to the parabola y=x2 at the point p(1 ,1) Q(x, x2) choose any x point, we chose 1. 5, therefore x2 would be (1. 5)2 which is = to 2. 25. Next find the slope = rise / run = (y2 y1) / (x2 x1) use point q as (x1, y1) and point p as (x2, y2) Now we must find the slope of the tangent, the slope we found was for the parabola not the tangent. To find the slope of the tangent we must use the limit as q approaches p lim = m , therefore lim = x 2 1 = 2.