Average Rate of Change Over an Interval

Key Questions

  • Can average rate of change be negative?

    Answer:

    Yes.

    Explanation:

    Remember that the rate of change could be things like acceleration, not just speed.

    Even though speed itself is a scalar and cannot be negative, you can have a negative velocity by adding direction (which makes it a vector)

    Also, if your speed is decreasing, you decelerate, which is another word for negative acceleration.

    For example, let's say you had the function #sin(x)# to show the speed in respect to time.

    graph{sinx [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

    We can see that your speed increases until it reaches a certain point. There, we see that it decreases to a certain point. The decrease represents negative rate of change. (Deceleration in this case.)

    Parabola · 2 · Apr 15 2018

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