06/04 2011                                                                William Frisch Møller and Marta Maillet Tapias, MYP 4, NGG ID

The Straight Line

Slope-Intercept Form

The slope intercept form is probably the most frequently used way to express the equation of a line. The equation can be written in many different ways, but taken we are in Denmark and are part of a Danish school the equation would be:

Where:

The slope-intercept form is a type of linear equation. A linear equation is simply an algebraic equation in which each term is either a constant (fixed number) or the product of a constant and (the first power of) a single variable.

Y-intercept

The Y intercept of a straight line is simply where the line crosses the Y axis, thus it requires no calculation to find.

Examples

  1. Find the y-intercept for the following equation.

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  1. Find the y-intercept for the following straight line.

Slope/Gradient

The slope (gradient) ultimately determines the ‘steepness’ or incline of a line, the higher the slope, the steeper the incline will be. For example, a horizontal line has a slope equal to zero while a line with an angle of 45o has a slope equal to one.

The sign (positive or negative) of the slope is very important, as it determines whether the line slopes uphill or downhill. Positive slopes (like the ones above) mean that the ...

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