How do you find the slope of the line parallel to and perpendicular to #y=3x-4#?

2 Answers
Anthony R.
Mar 1, 2017

Slope of line parallel is 3 while the slope of the perpendicular line is #-1/3#

Explanation:

The slope of any parallel is the slope of the original line.

For example: Given y = #2/3x#+5 the slope of a parallel line will be #2/3# whereas the slope of a perpendicular line requires you to take the negative reciprocal of the slope.

Since the slope of this example is #2/3# its negative reciprocal is #-3/2# (You just flip the fraction and negate it)

MeneerNask
Mar 1, 2017

#y# has a slope of #3#

Explanation:

So any line with the same slope is parallel to #y#. They will be of the form #z=3x+b#, (#b# being any number).

Perpendicular means that the product of the slopes must be #-1#.

In this case the slope must be #-1/3# because #-1/3xx3=-1#

Any line of the form #p=-1/3x+b# will do.

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