How do you write the equation of a line given the line has a slope of –1 and contains the point (4/5,0)?

1 Answer
Gió
Dec 17, 2014

This is a good question!
You have 2 clues:
the first one is the slope!
The slope tells you how y changes when x changes or:
slope=(Delta y)/(Delta x)
where Delta y=y_2-y_1 and Delta x=x_2-x_1

The second clue are the values of x_2,y_2 and x_1,y_1 ! Only one is fixed the other can be chosen at will.
You can choose:

(x,y) and (4/5,0)

So substituting in the expression. for the slope you get:

-1=(y-0)/(x-(4/5)

Rearranging, the equation of the line becomes:

y=-x+(4/5)

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